{"id":22238,"date":"2018-11-18T00:05:46","date_gmt":"2018-11-18T08:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/?p=22238"},"modified":"2018-11-18T00:05:46","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T08:05:46","slug":"rouge-forum-dispatch-trigger-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/rouge-forum-dispatch-trigger-warning\/","title":{"rendered":"Rouge Forum Dispatch: Trigger Warning."},"content":{"rendered":"

We Say Fight Back!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Conference: Commemorating Violent Conflicts and Building Sustainable Peace<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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  • KENT State<\/a><\/li>\n
  • School of Peace & Conflict Studies<\/a><\/li>\n
  • Conference: Commemorating Violent Conflicts and Building Sustainable Peace<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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    \u201cCommemorating Violent Conflicts and Building Sustainable Peace\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

    An International Conference at Kent State University<\/p>\n

    Commemorating the May 4, 1970 shooting by the Ohio National Guard of<\/p>\n

    Kent State Students during a demonstration against the US wars in Vietnam<\/p>\n

    and Cambodia\u00a0and\u00a0\u00a0the occupation of the Kent State campus<\/p>\n

    by the Ohio National Guard<\/p>\n

    Kent, OH, USA,\u00a0\u00a0 October 24-26, 2019<\/p>\n

    The School of Peace and Conflict Studies of Kent State University<\/p>\n

    The Peace History Society, The Peace Studies Section of the International Studies Association<\/p>\n

    The conference will open on Thursday evening October 24, 2019 with a reception and speaker. Friday and Saturday during the day (Oct. 24 and 25) will be devoted to concurrent panels and paper presentations on the various conference themes. Please refer to the Call for Papers<\/a> for details. Submission of paper abstracts are due by February 15, 2019 and must be uploaded through the conference website on the International Studies Association platform.\u00a0 www.kent.edu\/spcs\/conference-commemorating-violent-conflicts-and-building-sustainable-peace<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    www.facebook.com\/TheHamptonInstitute\/videos\/910288692454668\/?t<\/a><\/p>\n

    One Dead, 47 Injured in France Amid Protests Against Fuel Prices – Reports<\/h1>\n
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    Unions and political parties have used social networks to call for mass protest throughout France against the rising price of petrol.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    At least 47 people were injured during\u00a0protests targeting the increase in\u00a0fuel prices, which took place on\u00a0Saturday throughout\u00a0France.<\/p>\n

    According to\u00a0the French radio station France info, three people were seriously injured in\u00a0traffic accidents.<\/p>\n

    One person was knocked down\u00a0and killed in\u00a0the southeastern French Isere department amid\u00a0protests against\u00a0fuel price hikes, local media reported on\u00a0Saturday.<\/p>\n

    According to\u00a0BFMTV, the accident occurred in\u00a0Isere’s Pont-de-Beauvoisin commune. A female driver panicked as\u00a0the traffic was blocked by\u00a0scores of\u00a0protesters, and bumped into\u00a0the crowd, fatally injuring a woman, aged around\u00a050 years. The driver was detained.<\/p>\n

    There are plans to\u00a0block the main transport highways, and in\u00a0some places to\u00a0block access to\u00a0petrol stations and suburban supermarkets.\u00a0 sputniknews.com\/europe\/201811171069890268-france-taxes-fuel\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    www.facebook.com\/CareyWedler\/videos\/347028889408808\/?t=72<\/a><\/p>\n

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    www.facebook.com\/SputnikNews\/videos\/714796108899582\/?t=16<\/a><\/p>\n

    The Little Red Schoolhouse<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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    The Free Speech Crisis on Campus Is Worse than People Think<\/h1>\n

    A <\/span>new <\/span>moral <\/span>culture<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

    If you were a time traveler from 10 years ago\u2014maybe even five years ago\u2014you\u2019d probably have trouble following some of that. What\u2019s a <\/span>microaggression<\/em><\/span>? What\u2019s <\/span>woke<\/em><\/span>? And how could a <\/span>New York Times <\/em><\/span>op-ed lead to that kind of uproar on campus? But if you\u2019ve been around, and if you\u2019ve been following the happenings on American college campuses, you\u2019re familiar by now with conflicts like this and the new moral terminology guiding the campus activists. In the last few years we\u2019ve seen professors such as <\/span>Nicholas Christakis at Yale<\/a><\/span><\/span> and <\/span>Brett Weinstein at Evergreen State College<\/a><\/span><\/span> surrounded by angry, cursing students, with Christakis and his wife, Erika Christakis, soon leaving their positions as the masters of one of Yale\u2019s residential colleges and Weinstein and his wife, Heather Heying, leaving Evergreen entirely. We\u2019ve heard about <\/span>microaggressions<\/em><\/span>, said to be small slights that over time do great harm to disadvantaged groups; <\/span>trigger warnings<\/em><\/span>, which some students demand before they are exposed to course material that might be disturbing;<\/span> and <\/span>safe spaces<\/em><\/span>, where people can go to be free of ideas that challenge leftist identity politics. We\u2019ve heard claims that speech that offends campus activists is actually violence, and we\u2019ve seen activists use actual violence to stop it<\/span> \u2014and <\/span>to defend this as self-defense<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u2014when administrators fail to do so. quillette.com\/2018\/11\/14\/the-free-speech-crisis-on-campus-is-worse-than-people-think\/?fbclid=IwAR1VrfO4tEcHl3OmTRDxXlx8LHZMgpaFtuXGFHa5vMTo_4qrQsS8-17SIrc<\/a>
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    University alerts students to danger of leftwing essay<\/h1>\n

    \"The<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Prevent critics slam Reading for labelling \u2018mainstream\u2019 academic text as extremist (Norm above)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    An essay by a prominent leftwing academic that examines the ethics of socialist revolution has been targeted by a leading university using the government\u2019s counter-terrorism strategy.<\/p>\n

    Students at the University of Reading have been told to take care when reading an essay by the late Professor Norman Geras, in order to avoid falling foul of Prevent<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Third-year politics undergraduates have been warned not to access it on personal devices, to read it only in a secure setting, and not to leave it lying around where it might be spotted \u201cinadvertently or otherwise, by those who are not prepared to view it\u201d. The alert came after the text was flagged by the university as \u201csensitive\u201d under the Prevent programme.<\/p>\n

    The essay, listed as \u201cessential\u201d reading for the university\u2019s Justice and Injustice politics module last year, is titled Our Morals: The Ethics of Revolution. Geras<\/a> was professor emeritus of government at the University of Manchester until his death in 2013. He rejected terrorism but argued that violence could be justified in the case of grave social injustices.<\/p>\n

    Waqas Tufail, a senior lecturer in criminology at Leeds Beckett University who wrote a report about Prevent last year, described the case at Reading as \u201chugely concerning\u201d. Another Prevent expert, Fahid Qurashi of Staffordshire University, said the move showed how anti-terrorism legislation is \u201cbeing applied far beyond its purview\u201d.\u00a0 www.theguardian.com\/education\/2018\/nov\/11\/reading-university-warns-danger-left-wing-essay?fbclid=IwAR2tK83mNbVImookz0E0kAOQxaWsPrd4p81IgPTKy1y_2d1uq_ay6OMW6rU<\/a><\/p>\n

    Developer Moores in last-minute SDSU money move (add Enron’s Steve Peace)<\/h1>\n

    \"John<\/p>\n

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    Ex-Padres owner John Moores, long a lurker around the margins of San Diego State University’s attempts to take control of the city-owned acreage formerly known as Qualcomm Stadium, has finally outed himself.<\/p>\n

    On November 2, four days before the election that will decide the outcome of the university’s battle with an investor group<\/a> known as SoccerCity for development rights to the property, Moores personally produced $98,500 for Friends of SDSU, the political committee waging a ballot campaign on behalf of the school’s takeover of the land.<\/p>\n

    The same day, disclosure filings show, Kara M. Kratzer, listed as a Rancho Santa Fe homemaker, came up with the same. Her husband John Kratzer is CEO of Moores-owned JMI Realty. Since August 2, records show JMI, hired by SDSU as a consultant to the project, has given a total of $122,000 to the pro-SDSU committee.<\/p>\n

    Moores has a controversial history<\/a> as an SDSU benefactor, having cultivated university officials as far back as ex-president Steve Weber and his second in command, then-SDSU vice-president Sally Roush, with sizable dollops of cash for the school’s athletic programs.<\/p>\n

    Two decades ago, in December 1997, Weber first approached Moores with a proposal for SDSU to share ownership of a new Padres stadium and ancillary real estate development, similar in outline to that currently proposed by the university.<\/p>\n

    “This letter is to introduce the concept of a public\/private partnership, which would enable the financing and constructing of a baseball stadium for the San Diego Padres,” Weber wrote Moores. “The partnership would be between you and San Diego State University, with whom you have obviously established a history of philanthropy.”<\/p>\n

    \"Image<\/p>\n

    The racist “Aztec” moniker retained by SDSU by vote of a Secret “Committee” despite faculty vote.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Weber plied Moores<\/a> with the notion of leveraging his charity for personal financial advantage.<\/p>\n

    “The partnership also assumes that whatever personal stake you intend to contribute to the baseball stadium is significantly stretched by the multiple tax advantages associated with a charitable contribution.<\/p>\n

    “With this contribution, and assuming naming-rights revenue and sufficient operating income, SDSU would seek to purchase a site and secure construction financing either as a governmental agency, through one of our existing nonprofit corporations, or through a newly established nonprofit.”<\/p>\n

    To avoid detailed scrutiny of the arrangement, Weber argued for avoiding any say in the matter by the city’s electorate. “Under such a scenario, a public vote would not be required. The stadium would be leased back to the Padres, and the site would be available for joint use for our educational programs.”<\/p>\n

    No deal materialized, and a year later with the assistance of then-city manager Jack McGrory, mayor Susan Golding, and Union-Tribune<\/em> owner Helen Copley, Moores mounted a successful 1998 ballot bid to build a downtown ballpark with public money.<\/p>\n

    “The city and its redevelopment arm, the Centre City Development Corp., will contribute $275 million to the project, largely through the issuance of bonds,” Copley’s Union-Tribune<\/em> reported a week before the November election on the project.<\/p>\n

    “The bonds will be paid off with hotel-room taxes and new property taxes created by the project,” the paper asserted. By 2015, however, city taxpayers found themselves on the hook<\/a> for paying down the enormous debt, plus interest.<\/p>\n

    Flash forward to April 2016.<\/p>\n

    \"Image<\/p>\n

    The Chargers having forsaken Qualcomm Stadium Moores and his JMI Realty<\/a> launched another attempt to latch on to the aging venue’s real estate.<\/p>\n

    “The JMI team (represented by President John Kratzer and Steve Peace), working in concert with Steve Black of Cisterra Development, another prominent San Diego developer (and SDSU alumni), will unveil their proposal to develop the Qualcomm Stadium site into a civic gem that all SDSU alumni and San Diego County residents will claim proudly,” read the invitation JMI’s presentation held at SDSU’s Corky McMillin Center for Real Estate.<\/p>\n

    Moores himself, caught up in the twin scandals of the city council’s Valerie Stallings influence-peddling affair and financial shenanigans at his fraud-tainted Peregrine Systems,<\/a> along with a messy divorce battle, was no longer being publicly mentioned by the university as a partner in the future Mission Valley deal.<\/p>\n

    \u201cLook, take my name off stuff. I don\u2019t want my name used in affiliation with the university if it\u2019s going to be a lightning rod for controversy,\u201d then\u2013Padres vice chairman Bob Vizas quoted Moores as saying in October 2002 after a student newspaper columnist questioned the propriety<\/a> of the mega-millionaire\u2019s $30 million of SDSU donations.<\/p>\n

    \u201cA university spokesman noted that a plaque honoring the Mooreses on the school’s baseball stadium, along with several plaques naming other benefactors, had recently been removed for cleaning,\u201d the L.A. Times<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

    \u201cSpokesman Jack Beresford said he did not know when or whether they would be replaced. www.sandiegoreader.com\/news\/2018\/nov\/05\/ticker-developer-moores-last-sdsu-money-move\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Dear School Administrators, Please Stop Taking Away Teacher Planning Periods<\/h1>\n
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    Please. Just please.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Dear School Administrators,<\/p>\n

    I realize that it\u2019s been a while since you\u2019ve been in the classroom, and you may have forgotten the sacred nature of teacher planning time. You\u2019ve most likely buried the memory of having only 20\u201330 minutes of free time during the day. You know, the time used to plan lessons, go to the bathroom, eat lunch, call parents, cry if you need to, and clean out your inbox.<\/p>\n

    So I\u2019m writing to remind you that teacher planning time is our lifeline to surviving the teaching day. Taking it away is like draining the oxygen from our lungs. When it\u2019s stolen regularly, oxygen depletion settles in, and you\u2019ll find yourself with frazzled, fatigued, and frustrated teachers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    As teachers, we feel disrespected when you take this time from us. It communicates that you don\u2019t think we have anything better to do or that this time is optional\u2014which it isn\u2019t. Maybe if you knew how much this planning time contributed to the quality of our teaching, student assessment, professional development, relationships, extracurricular participation, and personal health, you\u2019d feel differently about asking us to skip it or cut it short. Here are some of the vital reasons we need this time. www.weareteachers.com\/i-need-my-planning-periods\/?fbclid=IwAR0mi4-OZeOsiRhvaXnzj-XwNxlxx6v1RmLYb9C55PSDgIwas7o3QkI4JlI#.W_DkzwCIFsM.facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"IMG_0617\"<\/p>\n

    Paradise Educators Hold Class<\/h1>\n

    Teachers from Children\u2019s Community Charter School in the fire-ravaged town of Paradise wanted to help their students maintain some sense of normalcy and routine, in addition to continuing their lessons.<\/p>\n

    So Annie Finney, second grade teacher and president of the Children\u2019s Community Charter School Teachers Association, along with fellow teachers and CCCSTA members Sheri Eichar and Brittany Bentz decided to organize a \u201cschool day\u201d on Nov. 16 for about 25 first- to third-grade students in a public library in nearby Chico.<\/p>\n

    The children\u2019s section of the library buzzed with laughter and excited conversation\u2014the sounds of school\u2014and hugs and smiles greeted every student who arrived.<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou came to school!\u201d Finney said, greeting third-grade student C.J. Ryder. \u201cThank you for coming here today. We are blessed to be together again!\u201d<\/p>\n

    Jamie Ryder, C.J.\u2019s mom, said that getting together for class meant a lot to her son and his classmates, who were chased from their normal lives when the devastating Camp Fire burned nearly all of Paradise to the ground. Eichar estimates that 90 percent of the students lost their homes as well as their school, which was destroyed by the fire.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s awesome for these kids to get back a little bit of what they had,\u201d Ryder said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had so much support.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Eichar has already been teaching class to 10 of her students in her kitchen. The day after the the students were chased from their homes, she used Facebook to talk about a book they had been reading just a day earlier, before the skies filled with smoke and lives changed forever. She, Finney and Bentz have been in contact over Facebook with all of their students, and organized relief supplies for their families.<\/p>\n

    Just before \u201cclass time,\u201d a donor from Oregon delivered a truck full of suitcases to Eichar, which she distributed to families in need. For those who literally escaped with the clothes they were wearing, this luggage meant no longer carrying their few items in plastic garbage bags and the familiar feeling of having a place for their things.\u00a0 californiaeducator.org\/2018\/11\/16\/paradise-educators-hold-class\/?fbclid=IwAR1SuYZxdRTEBAJ2qIMe34nCJnqRAZmNfNR673ghToRtU4ypG6_OR5zr7Xw<\/a><\/p>\n

    Borrowers Face Hazy Path as Program to Forgive Student Loans Stalls Under Betsy DeVos<\/span><\/h1>\n

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    The students attended institutions with pragmatic names like the Minnesota School of Business and others whose branding evoked ivy-draped buildings and leafy quads, like Corinthian Colleges. Tens of thousands of them say they are alike in one respect: They were victims of fraud, left with useless degrees and crushing debts.<\/p>\n

    Now the government program meant to forgive the federal loans of cheated students has all but stopped functioning.<\/p>\n

    No Education Department employees are devoted full time to investigating borrowers\u2019 complaints, according to three people familiar with the agency\u2019s operations. Instead, the agency\u2019s staff has fought in court to reduce the amount of relief granted to some students and to halt a rule change intended to speed other claims along.<\/p>\n

    That has left more than 100,000 claims for relief in limbo, according to the Education Department\u2019s most recent data<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s just dream-crushing,\u201d said Meaghan Bauer, who owes $45,000 for her time at the New England Institute of Art. The for-profit school, in Brookline, Mass., closed last year and was sued on fraud charges<\/a> by the state attorney general in July.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI can\u2019t afford to go back to school,\u201d Ms. Bauer, 27, said. \u201cWill I ever be able to buy a house? Or get married? I spent so much time working on a useless degree, and it could ruin me financially for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

    The relief program, called borrower defense, became a popular way for students to seek debt forgiveness after several major for-profit schools went bust in recent years<\/a>. During the Obama administration, the Education Department approved about 30,000 claims, more than half of them in the final two weeks before the new administration took over. All of those borrowers had their loans fully forgiven.\u00a0 www.nytimes.com\/2018\/11\/11\/business\/student-loans-betsy-devos.html<\/a><\/p>\n