Warmer weather is here. None of the mini-winters is forecasted. I’m clearing my flower beds and raised beds. Spring equinox is just around the corner. The grass/weeds are greening. My pear tree is in full bloom. It feels like spring!
https://www.newsbreakapp.com/n/0rlYAIdN?s=a3&share_destination_id=MTczNTgyNjAyLTE3MTAwODgyMzI2NTA=&pd=0BkKlOkL&hl=en_US Excerpt: The Tennessee General Assembly has passed a bill that could potentially remove dozens of books, including the Bible, from school libraries across the state.
When I was young, my mother would hide magazines, etc. that she felt had objectionable content. However, she did not hide that she was reading the content. We knew that something was objectionable because whatever she was reading would disappear. Like any curious child, I found her hiding places and read what she had hidden. And none of that content that she felt was objectionable because of our age or the subject matter ever influenced me to do anything that harmed me.
However, banning books may be a yawn in today’s environment. I fear that the majority of persons in the U.S. do not read books. They would rather listen to them, if interested, view them on a device like Kindle, or wait for the movie.
Too bad, the idea of small government doesn’t include massive intrusions into one’s personal life. Seems to only include the few who would profit from being a part of the small government.
Below is an excerpt from: https://open.substack.com/pub/susanrogan/p/march-11-2024?r=1na8nz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Advocates for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) received a jolt in recent weeks as a Mississippi legislator introduced a bill that would close three of the state’s public universities – focusing on factors that raised suspicions it was aimed at shuttering HBCUs. While the bill’s sponsor and opponents in the legislature both agree SB2726 will not make any progress, this is an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the long history of discriminatory funding these schools have been subjected to. The Biden Administration recently noted that over the last 30 years HBCU land-grant universities in 16 states have been denied $12.6 billion in funding they should have received under federal law mandating equitable distribution of state support for all land-grand universities, and a report from the Century Foundation noted how they have lost out on equal federal funding as well. But we have an opportunity to push for change – land grant schools are provided federal funding in the Farm Bill, and the current version is set to expire at the end of September. Let’s share the Century Foundation report and its recommendations on how Congress can ensure equity and justice for HBCUs with our representatives on Capitol Hill, and urge them to accept their proposal. Further, if we’re from one of the 16 states the Biden Education Department identified as having funding disparities between land grant colleges (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, MD, MS, MO, NC, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV), let’s reach out to our governors and legislators and tell them it’s time to make up the shortfall. Lastly, we can also sign this petition from Mississippi Votes against SB2726 to show our support for these institutions.
This is what is happening to Tennessee State University. Tennessee State University began in 1912 as the Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State Normal School for Negroes in 1912. Its name was changed to Tennessee State University (TSU) in 1968. TSU is the only historically black university in Tennessee funded by the state. It is also a land-grant university
An interesting bit of history from Wikipedia: A second Morrill Act was passed in 1890, aimed at the former Confederate States. This act required each state to show that race was not an admissions criterion, or else to designate a separate land-grant institution for persons of color. This latter clause had the effect of facilitating segregated education, although it also provided higher educational opportunities for persons of color who otherwise would not have had them. Among the seventy colleges and universities which eventually evolved from the Morrill Acts are several of today’s historically black colleges and universities. Though the 1890 Act granted cash instead of land, it granted colleges under that act the same legal standing as the 1862 Act colleges; hence the term “land-grant college” properly applies to both groups. (Emphasis added.)
The Neo Jim Crowism of the State Legislature wants to take Tennessee back to the days when there was no State higher education institution where the Black citizenry could be educated. The few Blacks who would be educated in the majority white institutions would not be educated in a nurturing, non-racist environment. (You know, an environment where one can fall asleep in a common area and not be awakened by campus security or worse.) The neo Jim Crow legislature would like to turn TSU into Lincoln University–a HBCU that is now predominantly white and has a white, incompetent president. (But we all know that incompetency has never been a barrier to whites, especially white males, getting prestigious well-paying jobs.) Every admission of a white person to these schools is one less admission of a deserving Black person. Note, it was the racism of whites that necessitated the need for TSU and it is the racism of whites that has now set out to destroy it as a HBCU.
And as the mindset, hearts, and laws of this white supremacist Jim Crow society have not substantively changed since TSU’s founding, TSU’s original mission is still relevant.
Sciamachy–A political tactic, where leaders create an imaginary enemy to unite their followers and distract from real issues. That is an apt description of the Fani Willis trial in Georgia. To distract, distort, defame, and demean…that is the goal of the Willis trial. Sciamachy is also an apt description of the Republican tactics. Their bogeyman is “fear”, a nebulous, unnameable fear, and they use it well. Enough people have to see and believe that the fear mongers are tilting at windmills and only then will the downward course of this country be reversed.
It’s unfortunate that the “land of the free and home of the brave” (how hypocritical of Mr. Key!) really means nothing today as land of the automaton and home of the shadow-shriekers would be more apt.
There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can’t hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew. Rumi
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