Author: thependulumswings staff

Monopoly Woke Up

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

For the first time in over 85 years, Monopoly’s 16 Community Chest Cards are about to get a “long overdue” redo, Hasbro announced last Thursday.

And, why not?  #metoo has an entirely new meaning these days, DeShaun Watson aside.  Hasbro is following the lead of Dr. Suess and the Potato Head formerly known as Mr.

Call it “woke” or call it “cancel culture,” but most of all call it corporate me too.

“True to its longstanding history of inviting its fans to help make changes to the game, and during a time when community means more than ever before, Monopoly is asking consumers worldwide to determine the new cards by voting at MonopolyCommunityChest.com,” the company said in a press release.   Actually, the long-standing history is that it rarely changed until now.

The press release drivel continues, “covering topics like beauty contests, holiday funds, and life insurance, there is no denying the Monopoly game’s Community Chest Cards are long overdue for a refresh. And, coming out of the tumultuous year of 2020, the term “community” has taken on a whole new meaning. Hasbro is counting on their fans to help reflect what community means in their real lives, into the Monopoly game, by voting for new cards like “Shop Local,” “Rescue A Puppy,” or “Help Your Neighbors.”

And on, “according to the Monopoly website where players may vote, card options include rescuing a puppy to get out of jail free or being penalized for not recycling your trash.

Woke indeed.  But perhaps they should have gone even further.  Changing just the Community Chest cards doesn’t seem inclusive enough.  BBR has a few further suggestions to iron out to bring the board game into 2021.

Pennsylvania Ave. should be eliminated.  The real-world Pennsylvania Ave. in DC has a Trump Hotel on it.  No one should have to land on that and pay the Donald rent money.

Reading Railroad should be eliminated as well.   This screams of prejudice against the illiterate.

The money that you are given to start the game isn’t enough either.  Maybe an additional $1400 for everyone whether legal, illegal, or incarcerated would be helpful in these tough times.

And, why even have a jail?  That corner space could be renamed Bill de Blasio Blvd as he always has an extra “get out of jail free” card in the rare instance that someone in NY is actually charged with a crime.

Mediterranean and Baltic should go.  No one should live on streets in such squalor.  And, Boardwalk and Park Place must go too.  No one should be able to afford such excess.  Maybe the rules could assess a property tax to the rich landowners each time they added houses and give it to the squatters of the aforementioned lower-class neighborhood.

Oriental Ave?  Really?  Wow!

The game’s goal used to be to empty your competitor’s bank account not empty recycled trash.

Maybe Hasbro could insure that everyone wins from now on.  Heck, even the name “Monopoly” should change, shouldn’t it?

One tweeter unloaded and called it a “terrible idea” and said it’s a classic board game for a reason.

“Make a new woke version if you must but please leave the original game as it is. Hopefully, you feel the pain of a massive boycott while you’re on the cancel culture bandwagon,” the user stated.

We feel the tweeter’s pain.

 

 

 

It Never Ends

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any tougher for the NFL Houston Texans in their offseason of upheaval and discontent it did.  One week you’re releasing the greatest player in the team’s history on the field and best representative (think choir boy) off of it, J.J. Watt.

The next week?  Oh boy.  Yesterday news broke that the franchise’s star quarterback DeShaun Watson has been accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit filed on behalf of a masseuse.  She claims that during a massage that “Watson went too far.”

Watson, who had his best season on the field in 2020 had already asked repeatedly to be traded in 2021.  He doesn’t like the direction the franchise has taken or not taken to produce a winning culture.   And, now, the Texans will not like the direction Watson has taken.

The Texans are a rare entity in the NFL truth be known.  The founder and owner passed away a year ago and left the future of the franchise to his “in over his head” son Cam McNair.  They place player comportment equal to, if not ahead of, winning.

“This case we just filed against Watson isn’t about money — it’s about dignity and stopping the behavior that should be stopped, NOW!” plaintiff attorney Tony Buzbee said.  Old Tony smells money inside of a nationwide trend, doesn’t he?

Watson uncorked a spiral on Twitter.  “The plaintiff’s lawyer claims that this isn’t about money, but before filing the suit he made a baseless six-figure settlement demand, which I quickly rejected.”

Of course, everyone is innocent until proven guilty in the good old USA, right?  Well, in today’s #metoo and cancel culture environment that old “innocent until proven guilty” right might be true in a court case, but in the court of public opinion that isn’t always the case.

Shouldn’t this be a criminal investigation?  Is it?  Will it be?  At this time, details, if any exist to that end, are not known.

Sex, fame, money, and power.  They all sleep in the same bed.  It’s just how they all get played or paid out that determines the eventual outcome.  False claims can pay as well.

Ask Judge Kavanaugh, Donald Trump,  Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffery Epstein, or Andrew Cuomo.  While the seriousness of the charges varies, so do the answers.  Seemingly innocent, hush money talks, guilty, very guilty, suicide, and wait and see come to mind.

Or, ask Robert Kraft, New England Patriots owner.  His videoed massage(or massages) and subsequent charges of soliciting prostitution were so tied up in court with his lawyers blocking the prosecution that they dropped the charges.

As an aside, if the Texans were serious about trading Watson, the return that they can expect just took a nosedive.  If Watson is really serious about getting traded he actually helped his cause.

It’s a sordid world that we live in.

The “breaking” stories are never-ending.

But, we suspect many have a happy ending.

 

 

 

 

 

$pring Break

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In case you missed it, and we hope you did, the University of California, Davis offered its students $75 to not travel during spring break.

How so very thoughtful of them.  Let’s break it down.

They used mom and dad’s tuition money and gave it to mom and dad’s kids to get in an attempt to control the kid’s actions.

Does that sound at all like the government taking your tax dollars and then spending them in any fashion they deem necessary in an attempt to control your everyday life?  Stay home, we have $1400 on the way as a minuscule part (9%)  of the $1.9 trillion we just spent.

Power is a drug more powerful than any approved COVID-19 vaccine.  Control is the by-product high.

What better way to enjoy the $60k tuition school year is there?  Hey kids, listen up.  How about we have virtual classes and a virtual spring break?

Some other colleges, including The Universities of Michigan, Tennessee, and Baylor amended their calendars to do away with spring break altogether.

The predictable responses are flowing from the CDC and the honorable Dr. Fauci almost as fast as the beer from the taps of the millions that ignore them.

“Last year at this time spring break travel may have led to the super spread of the virus,” says a Ball St study.  Dr. Fauci said yesterday, “this is no time to let your guard down based on what may happen.”   May.

“The behavior of Americans in the months of March and April will be critical in preventing another surge,” Center for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said earlier this month.  Who knew that the CDC had a flying Walensky?  But we digress.

Next thing you know they’ll be telling us there are variant strains that will require us to, well, nevermind.

Speaking of flying, the TSA screened 1.3 mil and 1.2 mil passengers this past Friday and Saturday, a sure sign that Americans and spring breakers are moving on with their lives.

If you are/were somewhere between the ages of 18-22, what would you do?  You could take the $75 bucks that your parents paid the school.  Or you could go risk it all on a beach chasing fun in the sun with a 99.99999% chance that even if you contract the virus you’ll dispense of it as quickly as you got it.

Or, you could take the $75 and still fill the Volkswagen love van with petro and drive to the beach.  Ah hah.  Who said education doesn’t pay?

Remember when we needed to shut down for two weeks to slow the spread?  That was a year ago.

California, home of Cal Davis, is still mostly shut down.  How’s that working out?

For Gavin Newsom not so well.   He felt free to move about while instituting the lockdown and now he might get ousted.

Remember, feel free to stay home as long as you like.

And, you used to feel free to go to the beaches as well.

 

Old Dogs, New Tricks

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Just two months after the “aggressive behavior,” or “insurrection” if you prefer, at the Capitol Building the U.S. government faced yet another major uprising last week, this time in the White House.

According to a report, President Joe Biden’s German Shepherd named “Major” had a serious “biting incident” with White House security late last week.  As a result, Biden’s dogs were returned to Delaware after Major’s “aggressive behavior” incident, said the CNN report.

 This photo didn’t age well. None of it.

It’s usually only news these days when man bites dog, but CNN always takes you the extra mile.

Time heals all wounds, doesn’t it?

Maybe it doesn’t, at least not yet in the fractured, cracked, divided, tumultuous, unsettled Republican Party.

Donald Trump doesn’t like having his name thrown around by the RNC these days.

In a Monday letter to Trump attorney Alex Cannon, RNC chief counsel J. Justin Riemer said the committee while fundraising  “has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech.”

He maintained that Trump had also “reaffirmed” to the chair of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, over the weekend “that he approves of the RNC’s current use of his name in fundraising and other materials.”

Trump responded to the letter with a statement that put that agreement in doubt. “No more money for RINOS,” or Republican in name only, he stated. “They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base.  They will never lead us to greatness.”   He’s nothing if not “like a dog on a bone.”

Hmm.  One of the two sounds like a head fake.

The RNC wants to use Trump’s name for the good that he brings to the party-aka money and loyalty from his base.  Conversely,  Trump’s instinct must be to control the use of his name and image to position himself as the undisputed leader of the GOP.

Further, he wants to raise his own money to, amongst other initiatives, exact revenge by backing challengers to Republican incumbents who crossed him by voting to impeach him for inciting the Capitol riot.  Trump has the shock collar out.

All of this divisiveness in the RNC when the Great Unifier just took over the Oval Office seems tawdry at best.

But, Trump is Trump.  Remember, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

And, in the White House or in pursuit of the same, it’s a major mistake to bite the hand that feeds you.

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Sports

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

If you have a busy Monday and need to go, we’ve got Ten healthy Nuggets to put you in the know.  It’s been a while.

  1.  The NBA All-Star game was yesterday. Did you watch it?  If you didn’t here is what you missed.  320 points.  Yep, 320.  That’s about 6 and 1/2 points a minute.   If you didn’t, here is what you didn’t miss.  Defense.  Team Lebron beat Team Durant 170-150.  Are you underwhelmed?  Understandable.
  2. That said, thanks to a perfect 16-for-16 performance from the field, including banking in multiple jump shots, Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo won his first NBA All-Star Game Most Valuable Player Award, as he and his Team LeBron cruised.  Even with defense being optional, 16 for16 is16 for 16.
  3.  The virus was on offense as well, as contact tracing forced the league to pull Philadelphia 76ers stars Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons out of the game.  It potentially will keep them away from the Sixers when the second half of the season begins Thursday.
  4. Lebron knew better than to play this meaningless exhibition.  James, who said early last month that the NBA’s choosing to hold an All-Star Game amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was a “slap in the face,” lived up to the other quote he had about the game that day.  “I’ll be there if I’m selected,” James said. “But I’ll be there physically, but not mentally.”  Could the same be said about the King numerous other times that he’s flapped his jaws?  He’s also keeping his decision about whether to get vaccinated or not private.  Maybe he’ll get it and be there physically but not mentally?
  5. With the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking havoc, the expectation has been that the NFL salary cap would fall significantly from 2020’s $198 million budget. After years of increasing by tens of millions of dollars, the fall was expected to be precipitous. The new floor of $180 million isn’t the exact final cap number but with the NFL and the NFL Players Association agreeing to it, it mitigates some of that decrease.
  6. Who has the most money to spend?  The Jacksonville Jaguars do.  They have $84 million free and clear.  They also own the first pick in the draft.  What team is the most underwater?  The New Orleans Saints went all in to try to get to another Super Bowl before Drew Brees’ arm turned into total mush.  They’re still about $48 million over the cap even after some off-season moves.  Three other teams (Rams, Packers, and Chiefs) that had playoff appearances or runs are also currently significantly over budget.
  7.  When was the last time Phil Mickelson wasn’t ranked inside of the top 100 in the Official World Golf Ranking?  It was 1993.  Or, 1425 weeks ago if you prefer.  It’s a record run.  Mickelson turned the big 50 last June.  He has won 44 times on tour.  If or when he is willing to put his mind to the PGA Champions Tour (aka the Senior Tour) he will pile up many more trophies.
  8.  Is Bryson DeChambeau unconventional in his approach to golf?  Is the Pope Catholic?  DeChambeau cut the corner, make that cut straight across the lake both Saturday and Sunday in the Arnold Palmer Bay Hill Classic with tape measure drives of about 342 yards.  Is his swing different than anything golf has seen since, well, ever?  Does a bear, nevermind.  DeChambeau won the Bay Hill and collected the top prize of $1,674,000.  That brings him to $23,229,908 for his career. He’s but 27 years young.   It pays to zig when others zag it seems.
  9. Kyle Larson wasn’t sure he’d ever race again in NASCAR.  And if he could, he didn’t know who would hire him.  Larson’s use of a racial slur while participating in an online call last April cost him his job, his reputation, and his ability to attract the corporations that fund a race team. On Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Larson raced to his first NASCAR victory since he was reinstated from a nearly yearlong suspension.  Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s only black full-time driver, was one of the first competitors to congratulate Larson.  Good stuff.  Cancel culture gave a rare second chance.  Things are already improving under Biden, but we digress.
  10. So, who has already punched their dance card for the big NCAA Basketball Tourney?  If you guessed the Liberty Flames, the Morehead State Eagles, the Winthrop Eagles, and the Loyola Chicago Ramblers you should reconsider your priorities.  “It’s small conference champ city, baby,” screeched Dick Vitale.  Selection Sunday is but six days away.

You’re fed.  Get to work.

Knuckle Scraping

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

President Joe Biden accused Texas Governor Greg Abbott of “Neanderthal thinking” yesterday after Abbott announced that the great state of Texas was now “100 percent open and a mask mandate was no longer in place.”

Mississippi’s governor did essentially the exact same thing on the exact day but nobody really cares about people in the great state of Mississippi, or so it seems.  Or, the electoral votes pale by comparison.

You see the real prize for the group that lives to divide (they call it unifying) is Texas.  They thought they had a shot with Beto v Cruz four years ago.  Somewhat close.  They thought they had a shot with Biden v Trump four months ago.  Somewhat closer.

Biden, we are mostly sure, didn’t think this way when the teleprompter and/or notes told him to utter “Neanderthal.”  He was looking out for the citizens of course.

After all, he flew in just last week to survey the land and the snowmen that had frozen the week prior.  Why he even assembled almost all of the “leaders” for a quick photo op and some words of unifying encouragement to help out with the thaw.

He recognized Congresswoman Shirley Jackson Lee for her help.  He meant Sheila Jackson Lee surely.  And, don’t call me surely.

He stumbled terribly over another name or two as well.  Then, he stopped himself and asked himself, “wait, what am I doing?”  Abbott was six feet from Biden and surely (again) wondered the same.

Biden didn’t mention the governor in his “pat on the back, mispronunciation, obligatory before I board Air Force One gathering.”  Hmm.

Maybe the third time is a charm.  Let’s gang up on Abbott.

Was Biden’s assessment of Abbott’s Neanderthal thinking right on?  Yes and yes seems to be the two answers depending upon who you ask.

Back when man scrapped his knuckles along the ground he could choose to come out of his cave when he wanted.  If danger lurked he could choose to stay put.  That sounds about like what Abbott has opened back up.

But, no mask?  Wow!  Maybe Texas could have opened back up and at least kept the mask mandate in place.  Some people think a mask helps while others don’t.

At least a mask makes it appear that you care.  And,  appearances count for everything.  Ask Biden.  He appeared in Texas and thinks he somehow helped warm it up while others don’t.

Heck, even Dr. Fauci who surely(and again) is old enough to remember his first cave thinks masks are important.  Now.

Although, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical advisor to the President said almost a year ago today(3/8/20) as we first got into his mess “that there is no reason to be walking around with a mask.”  Then.

So now and then we change our minds.

But, for those that eye Texas as the ultimate prize, they can only think Abbott has lost his.

Biden can relate.

Has the governor created another of those dreaded super spreader moments?

Time will tell.

But for the left, now’s the time to use every bit of it as political capital.  They do it well and they do it often.

 

 

 

 

Hot Air

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Opportunity.

When one sees it, one must capture it.

So it goes on the national political scene where an opportunity is rarely missed.  As Henny Youngman might say, “take last week, please!”

With so much cold air blowing down into Texas, the hot air emanating from all comers was coming from all corners.  Hot takes were aplenty on the existential threats that plague us so.  Climate change and coronavirus were topics 1 and 1a.

Al Gore invented the internet and became an authority on climate change.

Bill Gates one-upped him and gave us the programming language software to run the microchips that run the internet and now is following in Gore’s nonfossil footprints.

Gates weighed in Sunday on his latest endeavor.  “The changes in the wind patterns are allowing those cold fronts to come down from Canada more often,” Gates explained. “There’s a pattern of wind that, … as it gets warmer, that breaks down. There’s no doubt that we’re putting CO2 into the atmosphere. There’s no doubt that that increases temperatures and that affects the weather. ”

So warmer winds made the colder winds blow in Texas.  Who knew?  Ted Cruz did.  Apparently, the wind change stopped at the border though as Cruz took a fossil-fueled jet down to Mexico to avoid the resultant freeze and snow if only for a day or so.

Gates continued, “You know, there’s no magic date that it’s all great until then, and it’s terrible once you cross that threshold. It’s pretty linear as far as we know. 2050 happens to be the soonest realistic date for the world to change all of these source emissions.

Luckily we have more time than some of those also-ran politicians that fell by the wayside told us we have left.  Remember when Liz Warren, Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, and Julian Castro one-upped each other with the time left to save our planet?  Eleven years said one, eight years said the other. Five years anyone?

Castro said it was already too late.  Dammit.

Thankfully Sheila Jackson Lee and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez rushed down from Washington to help in the present while we debate the time left for this planet.  They handed out thousands of free lunches and warm blankets to those without in the deep south during the deep freeze. Fix the grid already and you don’t have to have to fill brown boxes.

How did they get from Washington DC to Texas so quickly?  Our guess is on a fossil fuel burning 737.

Say it slowly, pho-to op-por-tun-i-ty.  Where were you, Ted?

Meanwhile, an estimated 99,763 people in the U.S. have died due to complications from the coronavirus during Biden’s first month in the White House, according to statistics provided by Johns Hopkins University.

When he was campaigning he told us Trump had no plan to combat the virus, but that he (Biden) did.  Maybe that was a bit of hot air unto itself from now Prez 46?

“There’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months,” said Biden last month, after being sworn into office.

New Yorkers beg to differ. The U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly launched an investigation into New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (mis)handling of the state’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities during the pandemic.  This can’t be true, can it?   Cuomo wrote a book patting himself on the back about how he handled it so well.

NY City Mayor Bill de Blasio blew in to weigh in.  He thinks that Cuomo is bullying all of his lieutenants into toeing the company line about how well he handled the crisis.  “A lot of people in New York State have received those phone calls,” continued de Blasio. “The bullying is nothing new.   No public servant, no person who’s telling the truth should be treated that way.”

We actually need to eliminate bulls to halt climate change, but we digress.

However, de Blasio might have a solution that the rest of us, including Dr. Fauci, overlooked.

“Of all the things that we’ve learned in this crisis, maybe the most profound is the power of a mask,” said de Blasio during a Thursday press briefing. “What we’re saying today is, time to double up.”

“Two masks are better than one,” the mayor added. “Make it a double.”

Who knew that the solution all along was right under (or over) our nose?

Meanwhile, it will be 70 degrees in Texas today.

Like in politics the hot winds are blowing again.

 

 

 

 

Talent on Loan From God

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Yesterday God called back the talent he had loaned out to Rush Limbaugh.

“With talent on loan from God, it’s Rush Limbaugh,” part of how the intro to the daily conservative three-hour show went.  And, went.  For three hours a day, for 52 weeks, and for 32+ years the solo voice behind the golden mike, comfortably ensconced in the EIB(Excellence in Broadcasting) studio, offered lectures in advanced conservative studies as he put it.  Over six hundred stations globally offered his “course.”

His reach and his resilience are unmatched.

Limbaugh is regarded far and wide as the savior of talk show radio regardless of your political preference or party affiliation.

But, he was so much more than that to so many.  The charitable donations of his money, time, or airtime were far too numerous to count and far too generous for even a man of his wealth.

But he was so much more than that.  His passion for his country, his vision for how it was, and how it could and should be, was unwavering.  Guiding principles never go out of style.  You might disagree with the “how” but you’d be a fool to disagree with the “what” and the “why.”

Rush shaped lives.  Rush changed lives.  Rush was bigger than life.

And, yet, he had his missteps and faults.  Prescription drugs and a few wrong turns down the racial rabbit hole were all too well documented.  But, we’d guess God just gave him a fast pass ticket through the pearly gates.  Life is after all a roller coaster, isn’t it?

Fox News commenters, a video of him receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor at President Trump’s State of the Union(SOTU) in February of 2020, and President Trump himself all intersected on the Fair and Balanced network yesterday shortly after his passing.

And, that confluence is an example of where America got it all right and yet all wrong.  Rush would tell us so in comical and wise detail if he had but one more day to use his fine audio pipes.

Bill Hemmer asked Trump to watch along with the audience the SOTU moment when he awarded Rush the medal.

As Trump spoke directly to Rush and his wife seated in the balcony, behind the Prez was the one and only Nancy Pelosi.  She thought so little of the moment that she turned her body and therefore her view well away from Trump and even further away from the about to be anointed Rush.  She rifled through the paper that her SOTU copy was printed on like Amazon’s Alexa’s best shuffle.  So childish, like Trump.

Should anyone turn their back on Muhammed Ali, Bill Clinton, George Clooney, or countless others if they were getting a lifetime achievement award regardless of your beliefs about their beliefs?  No. No.  No.  Respect is earned and should always be recognized.

The Republican congressmen and women roared.  The Democratic ones sat in silence.  Maybe you didn’t like what he stood for, but at the very least you could have stood up for the presentation out of the respect you had (or should have had) for his place in American history.  Shameful.

And then Hemmer made the mistake of asking Trump what Rush told him after the November 3rd election.  Trump immediately launched into saying that Rush thought he won, and Americans thought he won, and Trump himself thought he won.  So childish, like Pelosi.

You take the low road and I’ll take the high road.

Even on his last day Rush would have dissected his own moment, found a way to make sense of it all, pointed us in a better direction, and stayed mostly above the fray.

America lost a great one yesterday, all of America that is.

So, who possibly can take Rush’s place?

The answer is no one even if you have considerable talent on loan from God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White Pow(d)er

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It seems, luckily, that Joe Biden took office just in time.  This climate change thing might be real after all.  And the education system is even worse.

From sea to shining sea this week America has been covered in white powder.  Staying warm has never been more important.  Where is the global warming that we all need right about now?

While Joe is fixing that it looks like the education system is bound and determined to fix not the white powder problem, but the white power problem.

On the far left coast, the Oregon Department of Education is seeking to root out white supremacy in mathematics, manifested by an emphasis on “getting the right answer” and making students “show their work.”  Oregon’s progressive Department of Education has furnished educators with an 82-page training manual titled “A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.”

The education department mailed the manual to teachers as part of Black History Month.

The manual enumerates signs of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom.”   “In order to embody antiracist math education, teachers must engage in critical praxis that interrogates the ways in which they perpetuate white supremacy culture in their own classrooms, and develop a plan toward antiracist math education to address issues of equity for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students,” the manual declares.

“Praxis” is a noun that means “accepted practice or custom” in case you needed to look it up like we did.  That old-school education apparently does leave some things to be desired after all.

What the manual never addresses is how dumbing down mathematics will magically eliminate “mathematical inequity,” a counterintuitive proposal if we ever heard of one.  Nor does it address the racial overtones of why it would need to be so.

We wonder what type of math is taught in other countries.  Isn’t math, math?  Maybe one plus one does equal three after all.

But wait, there’s more!

Three time zones over, a NY school principal is taking higher education to an even higher level.  East Side Community High School Principal Mark Federman reportedly sent a survey to white parents asking them to identify their level of whiteness.

Federman is asking parents to “reflect” on their “whiteness” — passing out literature that extols “white traitors’’ who “dismantle institutions,” education officials confirmed to The New York Post on Tuesday.

The offensive at the East Side Community School in Manhattan features a ranking list titled “The 8 White Identities,” which ranges from “White Supremacist’’ to “White Abolitionist.”  You can click on the link if you wish to see who you are and how much woke your wokeness has or does not have.

So we have a white principal, who knows white privilege when he sees it, sending homework home for his student’s parents, who don’t see it, to do.  Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

The racial makeup of the student body at East Side Community is 55 percent Hispanic, 18 percent white, 15 percent black, 10 percent Asian and 2 percent other during the last school year.   Isn’t the categorization of “other” offensive?  We digress.

The assignment was sent home to all parents.  So we wonder how 82% (the nonwhite) of the parents felt about the characterization, the assignment, and how they graded out.  Who knew nonwhites fell into one of these eight whiteness categories as well?

How did we get here?  Once upon a time, there was a little red schoolhouse on top of a hill.  If we built the same today there would there be a debate about the paint color?

The white powder across this land will soon turn to slush. Joe is up to the task of making it so.

We hope the minds of our young ones across this land won’t soon turn into mush.  What a task that is.

From this point of view, the change in education is far more extreme than the change in the climate.  And, as a reminder, it’s record-breaking cold outside.