#let's learn

Arin Waller at LGBTQ Nation:

A PBS-affiliated television station in New York has scrubbed its archives of at least three educational programs concerning transgender identities and drag expression. This comes during a time when President Donald Trump is targeting news stations — particularly PBS, NPR, and ABC News — for their allegedly biased criticism of him. Around March, the New York PBS station became the subject of ire from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ahead of a subcommittee meeting on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE), where she accused NPR and PBS of turning children transgender using American tax dollars. “I’m looking forward to holding the hearing tomorrow at 10 a.m. where we will be shining an intense spotlight on how Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars have been used by PBS and NPR, and the type of public broadcasting programs and radio shows they have been pushing across the country for decades,” she said on NewsMax around the time.

[...] New York affiliated station WNET, which produces Let’s Learn, had defended the episode around its initial release, explaining to Fox News that Let’s Learn “strives to incorporate themes that explore diversity and promote inclusivity, which are relevant to education and society. Drag is a performance art that can inspire creative thinking and the questioning of stereotypes.” However, recently, WNET rescinded its support and removed the episode across all its platforms. Additionally, they erased two other episodes about a children’s book featuring a trans protagonist, the Intercept reported. The Trump administration has continued an aggressive campaign against news and public media, dating back to December when then-President-Elect Trump sued ABC News for reporting that he was found liable of sexual assault in 2023. Despite being a cut-and-dry case with ABC being able to easily prove their claim as factual, they refused to fight the case and instead settled with Trump for $15 million.

[...] As the Trump administration intensifies its attacks, PBS has bent the knee in another way to dampen potential blowback by removing a scene in an Art Spiegelman documentary in which the graphic novelist Spiegelman discusses an anti-Trump cartoon. PBS also pulled a gaming documentary with trans themes, only to relist it after The Atlantic asked about its deletion.

This is insanity: PBS and its New York member station WNET caved to the anti-drag/anti-trans extremists such as whiny heifer MTG by removing drag content from Let’s Learn and also erased at least two other Let’s Learn episodes because it featured a trans protagonist.

See Also:

Rain, rain, go away. Many people aren’t very happy when a rainy day ruins their outdoor plans. Even worse, rain can fall in extreme amounts, especially during hurricanes and cyclones. Too much rain can result in floods that destroy homes and lives.  

Climate change has changed where rain falls, and how much. For instance, more water now gets dumped on cities during hurricanes. Climate change also moves where rain falls, so some areas that previously received plenty of rain have since been left high and dry.

But rainfall is also crucial to our life on Earth. It’s one part of the water cycle that allows life on land to exist. Farmers need rain for their crops. We also need rain to fill the reservoirs that provide drinking water.

Sometimes there’s too much rain. Sometimes there’s too little. Sometimes it’s just right. No matter what, we can’t live without it. So scientists spend a lot of time studying rain, where it falls and when. They’ve even found that rain might fall on other planets.  

Want to know more? We’ve got some stories to get you started:

Is weather control a dream or nightmare?: People are changing the weather, and that may not be good (10/19/2017) Readability: 7.2

Raindrops break the speed limit: Tiny drops fall faster than expected, and scientists don’t know why (11/7/2014) Readability: 7.8

Spotted: An exoplanet where it might rain: Two teams have detected signs that the world, called K2 18b, has a damp atmosphere (10/25/2019) Readability: 7.0

Explore more:

Scientists Say: Petrichor

Explainer: Earth’s water is all connected in one vast cycle

Cool Jobs: Wet and wild weather

The odd ways that weather can unfold in a warming world

Dirty clouds change rainfall

This umbrella ‘listens’ to rain — for science

Word find

It might seem that there’s nothing living in your house other than you, your family and your pets (if you have them). But take a closer look. How many critters can you find?

Back in 2012, scientists from North Carolina State University conducted the first-ever census of arthropod diversity in people’s homes. They visited 50 homes around Raleigh, collecting any living or dead insects, arachnids or other arthropods they could find. On average, each home had at least 93 species — and some had more than 500.

Some of these tiny roommates are innocent, like the spider that sits in a corner waiting to catch a meal. Others are a nuisance, like camel crickets. And then there are those that are real health hazards, such as bed bugs.

Researchers from NCSU have continued their efforts to document the creepy crawlies in our homes. And they are asking for your help. They started a project on the iNaturalist app called Never Home Alone: The Wild Life of Homes. More than 1,800 people around the world have uploaded more than 10,000 images of creepy crawlies they’ve found at home. That might seem like a lot, but more (say, 20,000) would let the scientists make some conclusions about the rarer species hiding out in our homes. (Find out below how to participate.)

Want to know more? We’ve got some stories to get you started:

Bugs that call your house home: Insects, arachnids and other arthropods are hiding in plain sight (2/4/2016) Readability: 7.9

Citizen scientists spy on camel crickets: Hiding in dark basements and garages, these insects live across the United States (3/9/2016) Readability: 6.5

Return of the bed bug: Evolution and luck have been aiding this bloodsucking parasite’s global spread (5/15/2015) Readability: 7.3

Explore more

Scientists Say: Venomous

Explainer: Eek! What if you get bed bugs?

Analyze This: A massive annual insect migration

Spiders eat insects — and sometimes veggies

Word find

It's going to be strange, knowing that there are very tiny kids learning what I will be learning, but my journey is my own and I need to remember that. I love the sound of the violin and with a teacher I am sure to learn in a way that doesn't harbour bad techniques!