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The Connecticut Association of Boards of Education recognizes a need to embrace diversity so that the folks making policy and teachingreflect the diversity of the students in the seats. It starts at the top with the school boards, notes the nonprofit organization that represents the interests of boards across Connecticut.

According to CABE, only a small number of board members in Connecticut are of color, about 12% African American, 4% Latino, the latter number particularly alarming given the states expanding Latino population.

In Norwich and New London, diverse boards of education do reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of those communities, but not so in Groton. We agree with CABEs observation that local political parties should strive to attract more people of color to run for school boards.

In a recently published Equity Toolkit for Connecticut Boards of Education, the association not only lays out succinctly why diversity is important, but also provides practical steps how school systems can start working toward that goal.

The toolkit defines equity as giving students what they need to be successful, academically and socially. To reach equity, students will need to see themselves in their curriculum and instructional materials.

Its lofty, meritorious goal is to reach a point when there are no systematic disparities in academic outcomes based upon race, ethnicity, gender, economic status, or zip code. The state remains far away from that destination, but getting their begins, as CABE recognizes in quoting the vision statement of the State Board of Education, with the core principle that, with the right supports and rich learning opportunities, every student will meet high academic standards, regardless of a childs life circumstances.

Credit the organization, whose association represents school boards controlled by both Republicans and Democrats, with tackling a subject which, unfortunately, gets dragged into the political culture wars. CABE has long advocated for recruiting great teachers, but also ones who, through minority recruitment efforts, reflect student diversity.

The Equity Toolkit outlines how to begin community conversations that allow people from diverse backgrounds to speak openly about how well, or not, they think students are being served and families supported. The aim is to engage members of the community who are not typically involved in conversations about excellence in education, helping all better understand how the needs of students can be met, and how parents can contribute.

This worthy effort by CABE deserves consideration by local school boards.

The Day editorial board meets regularly with political, business and community leaders and convenes weekly to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Tim Dwyer, Editorial Page Editor Paul Choiniere, Managing Editor Tim Cotter, Staff Writer Julia Bergman and retired deputy managing editor Lisa McGinley. However, only the publisher and editorial page editor are responsible for developing the editorial opinions. The board operates independently from the Day newsroom.

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theday.com - New London and southeastern Connecticut News, Sports, Business, Entertainment and Video - theday.com

During a prayer call earlier this month, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson bragged about the fact that there are godly people working behind the scenes to help push conservative judicial nominees for Donald Trump. Dobson is giddy over the fact that the Judicial Branch of government has been destroyed by Donald Trump because he believes this means that Republicans will finally win the culture wars that they started decades ago. Ring of Fires Farron Cousins explains whats happening.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Earlierthis month Focus on the Family. James Dobson joined a monthly prayer call withintercessors for America where Dobson actually praised Donald Trumps effortsto destroy the judicial branch of the federal government. Although of course,Dobson doesnt think its destroying the judicial branch. He thinks itsrestoring it to some kind of former glory that I guess Dobson thinks that ithas during this phone call. Dobson specifically praise the quote, godly peoplebehind the scenes who were feeding Donald Trump these nominees, and we know whothose people are. Its people like Mitch McConnell, people like Lindsey Graham,the Federalist Society and other right wing think tanks funded by corporationswho are feeding these right wing judges directly to Donald Trump who doesntknow any better and just says, yeah, sure. This person, why not? As it standsright now on the district courts here in the United States, 25% of those judgeshave been appointed by Donald Trump.

25%of the district courts are made up of Trump appointees, and here we have thisright wing evangelical pastor bragging about that specifically said theyreliterally changing the nature of the judiciary. Now. Thats something we havesaid plenty of times here except we say it as a warning. Theyre literallychanging the nature of the judiciary. Whereas Jame Dobson comes out and saystheyre literally changing the nature of the judiciary and the reason Dobson ishappy about it is because these right wing judges that Trump is appointing leftand right and nobodys really paying that much attention to, they would finallywin the culture Wars for the Republican party. Were talking about anti LGBTQjudges taking the bench. Were talking about judges who believe that marriageis only between a man and a woman. Judges who believed that Christians are apersecuted minority even though theyre not.

Theseare judges who will side with corporations at every given opportunity andthats the thing we all have to realize about these judges that Donald Trump isputting in place. Its not just the culture war issues. Thats what the mediawill focus on with these judges and they are important. Yes, this is a issue ofequality. This is an issue of treating every human being like they are thesame. These right-wing judges dont want to do that, but they also want toallow corporations to poison our rivers and our streams and our drinking water.As it stands right now, according to the latest reports, there isnt a singleperson in this country that has tap water going into their house that is notcontaminated with cancer causing chemicals at dangerous levels, not one singleperson. Those are issues American citizens dont even realize are happeningbecause theyre not reading these reports.

Theyrenot following these judicial appointees that Trump is putting into place, andhere we have religious frauds like James Dobson telling us that this is a goodthing, telling his followers that they need to pray for the judiciary, pray forthis branch of government, pray that we get these religious people who believewhat we believe on the benches and so far they have been hugely successful withit. A lot of the damage that Trump has done can be undone. A lot of it can beundone by executive order, by the next democratic president, but these judgesis, nothing can be done about that. Not a single thing. Theyre there for life.Jeez, youre doing impeach a president than it is to impeach a judge. So goodluck getting rid of these people. If they dont explicitly break the law, thenit doesnt matter how many bigoted or horrible pro corporate rulings they putout, theyre going to be there for the rest of their lives. And that is whypeople like James Dobson are willing to overlook all of Donald Trumps moralfailings because ultimately hes still just pushing the conservative agenda.

The rest is here:
Right Wing Pastor Brags About Trump's Assault On The Rule Of Law - The Ring of Fire Network - The Ring of Fire Network

My university email account got hacked last week. It happened at 10:00 in the morning. I was still in bed. Thankfully, several colleagues were awake and at their computers. Ten minutes after the attack a phishing email had been reported and my account closed down. Nevertheless, emails purportedly in my name had found their way across the whole university causing annoyance to those who didnt know me and bewilderment (or merriment) to those who did.

Our IT technicians are patient, extremely good at their jobs and, above all, very kind. What did l do wrong? l asked them.

It is nothing that you did. The bots are very clever you may have opened a dodgy attachment and it may have been years ago, they reassured me.

l pictured the university digital support experts reading my emails in order to reconfigure my corrupted account. There were some really nice emails about Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Townsend Warner. Then I had a momentary panic: was there anything that shouldnt have been there? No, squeaky clean I thought, congratulating myself for carefully keeping my work-related and personal accounts separated.

Oh by the way, there is no official university signature at the bottom of the emails youve been sending, the nice digital support technician told me. Weve been asked to remind you, she said apologetically. Ah yes, that email signaturethat l havebeen struggling to set up, but alaswith no success, I think to myself.

I am an emerita professor these days and enjoy supervising and researching as much as l ever did, but l have been reminded of my need for digital literacy virtually every day since l retired. l am a trustee of a local organisation, for example, with a rather good website that someone needs to update. l look pointedly at the floor when this comes up at meetings. I am the only one of us in the room who has no idea how to do this. l am hoping against hope that none of the others will realise this fact. Actually, they all realise it but everyone is much too nice to point it out.

Was it ever thus? No. l, too, was once a digital champion. l remember taking to email instantly, recognising its life-transforming communication potential the very first time l was shown it. The joy of being able to send my own academic writing instantly to a friend anywhere in the world!

I also becomeadept atspreadsheets, something I dont miss in my soi-disant retirement.

In my work in the community there are things about which l care passionately like the failure of the number 18 bus to materialise at the stop outside my house to take me to the Cambridge city centre.

Social media is the place for these types of rants these days. So why, when l know that a digital presence is a sine qua non for anyone who wants to be heard beyond their immediate family and friends, do I resist it? Especially when all universities (quite properly) expect digital literacy from both students and staff; when l know that elections are fought and won on Facebook; when influencers reach millions on YouTube; and my own academic monographs reach a few hundred. Why do l hate the very thought of anyone being able to press a like or dislike button on anything remotely connected with me? My regrets for no longer being a digital champion end here.

The reason, mainly, is internet trolls. Now I am noshrinking violet (sorry, snowflake). Yes, l probably could cope with trolling but only in some circumstances: when l am feeling happy, buoyant, in good health and surrounded by friends. Not when l am feeling depressed, tired, struggling with bereavement, illness and caring responsibilities or with utility companies and household appliances that dont work. A lot of women l know feel this way.

There was the recent story of the academic whose students alerted her to threats on social media. Her university acknowledged that she was in real and present danger. l read in the newspaper that she was to have security guards in her lectures who will accompany her to the lecture hall and check that she is not being followed. The security guards will also sit at the back until the students see them when they arrive. This is unconscionable; truly and unfathomably awful. After reading the article I realised that this is someone l have actually met.

Trolling can affect the victims support network as well. I think of my thoughtful, softly-spoken, sensitive student, for instance, who, as far as l can see, has never done anything to offend anyone and never would. The vitriol she received after posting something online did not just frighten her it frightened both of us. Were the trolls in Cambridge or in Canada? In Norwich or in Nigeria? It spooked me that we didnt know.

If Mary Beard can cope with it so can you, said one well-intentioned friend. She was encouraging me to enter the 21st-century culture wars with what she felt sure would be a new dazzling online presence. Mary Beard? Oh, to be the Cambridge classicist Mary Beard; to be brilliant, confident and indestructible; to have her sharpness of intellect; to be unimaginably wonderful in every possible way. I wish l were Mary Beard. But sadly, l am not.

Throughout my teaching career l kept a box of (usually floral) notelets in my office. There was always a use for them birthdays, congratulations, new babies, promotions but more often than not I associate them with sadness and disappointment; with messages of condolence, sympathy and support. l reach for my notelets and carefully begin to compose a few handwritten sentences to my fellow academic who now has bodyguards to protect her against online trolls. This is not the appropriate time for emails with or without a signature at the bottom. l am trying to remember if the old flowery notelets were really scented with lavender. Or was it Devon violets? But then my memory is nothing like as good as it was.

Mary Joannou is emerita professor of literary history and womens writing at Anglia Ruskin University.

See the rest here:
Confessions of a former digital champion - Times Higher Education (THE)

The Iranian revolution occurred 41 yearsago, but its consequences endure, having triggered a set of geopolitical earthquakes that transformed the Middle East.

The regime change in Tehran in 1979 deprived the US of one of its leading strategic assets in the region. Energy markets were affected by a second oil shock after the 1973 one; a Shia revival reactivated the centuries-old Sunni-Shia confrontation within Islam; and some Middle Eastern boundaries were redrawn with blood. Another centuries-old confrontation, between Islam and the West, found new life.

The revolution ultimately generated a sequence of events in the region similar to the 17th-century Thirty Years War in Europe, with the notable difference that the Middle Eastern version - more recently carried out by the US-led Arab Nato and the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance - has now reached its 40th year, and shows no signs of ending. A new security architecture in the region is highly needed, but it seems there is no will or leadership to promote it.

The last decade has provided hopes and delusions, from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to the fears of a new regional conflict generated by the US withdrawal from that same agreement. Conflicts and tensions between two new geopolitical entities are affecting Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The meaning of the Iranian revolution goes beyond geopolitics. It is something much deeper and more difficult to grasp

To understand the revolutions impact, to an extent, it can be linked to the tragic events of 9/11 - although not in the sense promoted relentlessly by the diehard neocons who have tried for decades to hold Iran accountable for the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Rather, the thread linking these events is the reaction by the most fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism, to the revolution:a panic-driven responseby Saudi Arabia causedit to launch a massive campaign of global financing and promotion of its Wahabistrand which unintentionally culminated in terrorist attacks by groups includingal-Qaeda and, later, the Islamic State.

But the meaning of the Iranian revolution goes beyond geopolitics. It is something much deeper and more difficult to grasp. One of the lesser-known, but most significant acts carried out by the revolution's leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini a few months before his death may be helpful in understanding this.

On 1 January 1989, the former supreme leader directed a letter to then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, as the country and its communist ideology experienced its terminal phase.

The letter, complex and imbued with metaphysical and philosophical references, contained a couple of essential messages: that communisms crisiswas due to the choice to obliterat[e] God and religion from society,and that Gorbachev had deluded himself into thinking that the solution to his countrys problems was represented by the illusory heaven of the Western world.

Revolutionary Iran thus stood as the champion in opposing the two great historical materialisms: communism and capitalism. In essence, Khomeinis Iran waged a systemic cultural war against the Western Enlightenment - specifically, its removal of religion from the lives of individuals. Western secular civilisation and modernity were contested at their roots.

Leaving aside philosophy and metaphysics, the Iranian Revolution was the culmination of a systematic opposition, going back to the 19th century, against a perceived oppressive Western hegemony - not only political and military, but above all, economic and cultural.

Forty years later, Khomeinis letter still offers cues for reflection, especially in light of current global dynamics. Russia, after a brief interlude spent in what Khomeini called the Western garden, with disastrous economic and social outcomes, has in the last two decades taken another path based on different identity values, drawn from the Christian-Orthodox religious tradition.

In the last decade, Europe and the US have been ravaged by culture wars and identity conflicts, where religious and ethical values have played a non-secondary role. These conflicts have jeopardised the European political project and its set of secular values and principles. In the US, they are leading to a polarisation not seen since the 19th century civil war, making the leader of the free world barely recognisable, even by its more faithful allies and friends.

How 1979 reshaped Iran and Saudi Arabia

In the meantime, communisms last political bastion, China, seems to have succeeded in combining the best of these two ideologies, and it aspires to a world-leading role in 2049, the 100th anniversary of its own Revolution.

Ultimately, the persistence with which the US opposes Iran, and by which Israel portrays it as an existential threat, are due precisely to Irans ideological stance.

Tehrans alleged nuclear military programme is largely a pretext. Iran is not considered a normal nation because it has refused to bow to the Western world order and the Pax Americana in the Middle East, and is the last country in the region opposing the liquidation of the Palestinian problem.

Irans capital sin has been its missionary struggle, according to its own peculiar and disputable views, against perceived oppression and injustice attributed to Western nations and their Arab proxies. Iran still claims, perhaps naively, to oppose Western neoliberal materialism and its related world order, considered sources of moral corruption and depravity (the Great Satan).

Forty years on, however, the revolutions religious fervour has greatly subsided; the population, especially the youth, show strong signs of revolutionary fatigue. However, such a feeling should not be naively morphed into a propensity for regime change.

The essentially binary Western mind should make an effort to reconcile with the fact that the people in the streets of Tehran, Baghdad and Beirut may protest against their governments heavy-handed policies, economic mismanagement and corruption, but this does not equate to their automatic embrace of an increasingly decrepit Western model.

Watching the massive scale of Iranian General Qassem Soleimanis funeral, after his assassinationon Donald Trump's orders, it is clear that many Iranians, no matter their dissatisfaction with life in the Islamic republic, have no illusions that the US will be their saviour.

Theviews expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

The rest is here:
Four decades on, the West still doesn't get the Iranian revolution - Middle East Eye

Photo by picjumbo.com from Pexels

Im not much involved in the culture war because I think its a misuse of time and energy, especially on the part of Christians and churches, to be vying for political power.

The Evangelical Right was the first to fall to this temptation in recent American history, but the Progressive Left is quickly following suit. Its like well do and say almost anything to bolster our advantage against the other side.

Hear me out on this matter, please. Its not that I think certain issues arent important when it comes to our culture, and its not that I think we shouldnt stand for what is right, especially when it comes to our solidarity with the most vulnerable members of society. The church has a prophetic calling to speak truth to power in every sphere of life.

Its the way we go about it that matters.

Youre probably familiar with the story of Jesus going to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Luke 4:1-14). The good book says that after he fasted and prayed for forty days, Satan came to offer him some help.

Use your power to feed yourself, he suggested (Im paraphrasing here). Throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple. Just show me a little obeisance and all the kingdoms of the world will be yours. Easy peasy.

Of course, Jesus refused his offer on every count and subsequently returned to town in the power of the Spirit. I think we tend to overlook the significance of this exchange, especially that last little bit. Jesus returned with power, but it wasnt the kind of power the devil offered him. It wasnt worldly power Christ sought but spiritual power, the difference between power over and power with.

Essentially, this story symbolizes the human temptation to take power over our fellow creatures in effect, bypassing the suffering of the cross to gain what might otherwise seem to be legitimate ends.Jesus denied himself this temptation and chose a better way. Christians are called to imitate Christ in this way, but the culture war demonstrates our overwhelming failure to do so.

Forgive me if Im wrong here and Im well aware of how much my privilege may be playing into my viewpoint but I think both the Evangelical Right and the Progressive Left in America have fallen for the devils temptation. In a well-intended but misguided effort to advance their righteous cause(s), they have left the way of Christ to jockey for political power instead.

Without going deeply into it, I should also point out that political power is always power over. It is the power of the State which is maintained by either the threat or force of violence. Granted, the violence of the American state (at least upon its own citizens) may seem benign compared to other authoritarian countries, but it is no less real. If you dont believe me, just stop paying your taxes for a while. Youll find out how free you really are.

Until the time of Constantine, there seems to have been a fairly unanimous if not universal view among Christians that taking the way of Christ meant refusing participation in the ways of the world, which amounted to not being a direct participant in the affairs of the State. In the words of Eberhard Arnold,

The [early] Christians abhorred and attacked [any] mixture of the religious and the patriotic. They detested any State religion that forced back Gods rule; they loathed all religiosity influenced by the politics of the moment, and fought against any veneration of the existing power structure. This included any political system with a religious emphasis. These were to be regarded as the inheritance of Babylon, the works of sin and demonism. They were nothing short of the devils state and the service of Satan. (The Early Christians in Their Own Words)

Theoretically, this conviction would have held true whether or not the state was considered Christian, as it often is in modern-day America. In fact, most early disciples would have scoffed at the notion of a Christian nation, because, again every nation is founded on either the threat or force of violence, and this type of power (power-over) is essentially anti-Christ. It is the way of the world.

I realize that Im hinting at some pretty big implications here, but I dont see how the Christian faith proposes anything less.At the very least, it suggests that no matter which side wins the Christian culture war, weve already lost the battle for a new world just by participating in it.

Ill stop there. The prophets and patriarchs of old dreamed of a celestial city not built with human hands, whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10). Part of what I think this means is that the new Earth, including its people and its social systems, will not be built on the foundation of human violence as our current systems are. We need a better way for a new humanity. The way of Christ.

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What the story of Jesus' temptation says about the Christian culture wars | What the story of Jesus' temptation says about the Christian culture wars...