oh hi

It would be a shame if the number and email were spread to bad actors looking to prank call the AZ Department of Education

602-771-3500 or empower @ azed .gov 🤡

She is far more like Elon Musk. She is a radicalized person with an extreme amount of social and financial power, and for YEARS she has been using that power to try to influence her government into hurting vulnerable people, on purpose. And she has succeeded. THAT is the problem with her, and THAT is why spending money on her books is so dangerous, not because her books aged badly.

Dick remembered a word to say when people are yelling!! man, I wonder where he learned that...

He does get very upset when he learns it's bad to say,, Bruce isn't mad of course he thinks it's hilarious

the late 2000s to mid 2010s were culturally, a time of a resurgence of hope. I don't think we seriously realized it at the time (for all the Obama campaign posters), but it honestly was the last period in recent history where it was assumed the future would be better.

that was a big thing, that many millennials didn't realize was a big thing, until it was torn away. we honestly thought it was over, the fear and uncertainty of the Cold War and the Nuclear Age (and Bush 2.0). we were born in an era of reprieve. things were bad, yes, the world was insane and unfair, but it was better than it was before. the world had been at the brink of ultimate disaster, and then it stepped back. (And we honestly thought we had escaped our parents' legacy, by sheer virtue of being born in the correct decade.)

I cannot overstate how much that shapes your worldview, growing up in a time where the recent present is better than the recent past. we had reason to believe the world was getting better. because it was, actually! for a good while there! progress was slow, but it was real, and we could feel its grit on our fingertips.

and now we're in an age of regression. because you were robbed. we were robbed. a great global era of robbery (of housing and food and time and health and body and freedom and fundamental human rights), has blossomed, and is happening everyday today.

Both options are great.

Because the thing is, when bigots pick fights, they are 100% counting on you to get louder than them. Or meaner. They want you to react emotionally and provide fodder for their 'You're Too Emotionally Immature To Understand' cannon.

What they aren't expecting you to do is say one of the following phrases in a polite, concerned tone:

Are you okay?

That's not the kind of language I was raised to use with others.

Do you need a moment to think on why that wasn't acceptable?

This is no way to engage in intelligent conversation. Please try that again in a kinder tone if you'd like this to continue. (I really like this one because it lets you turn their public-shame rhetoric around)

For those of you who'd are spiteful and/or dealing with Fundamentalists/Evangelicals/generally shitty Christians:

What's happening in your life to cause you this much anger? I can't imagine hurting so badly that I need to hurt other people.

Who taught you it was acceptable to treat other people this way? Certainly not the Jesus I remember.

Whatever happened to 'judge not lest ye be judged'?

If I talked like that in front of my parents or grandparents I would be ashamed.

I think there's something you need to pray on before we try and have this conversation.

And my all time favorite:

"It sounds to me like there are some seriously dark and angry forces at work in your heart."

(Nothing stops a Christian bigot in their tracks faster than implying the Devil is causing their bigotry. But you MUST be calm, polite, and gentle with your tone and wording. It is absolutely fair to twist the rules and play them at their own game, but you gotta play hard.)