Not currently teaching in a “US hole.” I’ve been teaching in South America for 5 years and I have never noticed an analog clock in a public place here.

I’m from the US, but I’m currently a teacher in South America. Kids here are even worse at reading analog clocks than my students in the US were.

Teacher here.

I’m pretty certain that the only place where my students ever encounter an analog clock is at school. But teaching how to read analog clocks is required in our math education standards, so I have one and I use it, even though I think there are other, more relevant places to put our academic focus.

I’m 45 years old. I’m pretty sure we only ever had one analog clock in our house when I was growing up in the '80s, and that was my grandpa’s alarm clock. The only places I’ve been where only analog clocks were available have been schools. Even our local bank in my small town changed to a digital clock on its sign outside.

Unfortunately, education systems are dictated by legislators, who are often old and out-of-touch. So I doubt we’ll see a change in the education requirements any time soon. But, just like how keyboarding has replaced cursive in classrooms, it will eventually come.

I did it for almost 10 years. Most of the work we did was fine, but some was utterly opposed to my personal values. I started making donations to my favorite charities (mostly Planned Parenthood and ACLU) every time I had a new work project that I felt was working against their goals.

When my husband and I were financially stable enough, I noped out of that job and found something that paid less but was affirming instead of soul-crushing.

My uncle was a factory worker and a daily regular at his favorite local bar for more than 30 years.

My mom wouldn’t allow me to go inside the bar (because drinking alcohol is a sin, you know). But in the '80s and '90s, before cell phones, I knew exactly where to find him after school if I needed anything.

Unfortunately, 30+ years of excessive drinking caused a lot of really serious health problems that caught up to him when he was in his 50s. The owners and staff sent a huge flower arrangement and all came to his funeral.

My husband just read this in the style of Gob Bluth’s “Should the … should the guy in the …” and it was perfect.

I thought that’s what it looked like. Thanks for the reference.

Also, I’m not sure who thinks that an engraved stone is a “plaque.”

Not gonna lie. I felt betrayed when I found out Betty Crocker was a marketing invention.

Sometimes it’s “being edgy just for the sake of it isn’t cool. Don’t be an idiot; people fought wars over this.” Students generally respect him, so once they realize he doesn’t play that game, they stop doing it in his classes.

If it’s a specific kind of bigotry, he points out that someone important to him is black/gay/trans/an immigrant/etc, and asks the kid if they’ve even met someone in that group. Most of the time the kid hasn’t and they’re just parroting things they’ve heard at home or online.

I also always access .world through my VPN.

I’m still here at .world because every time I think I’ve identified a better instance to go to where people seem to like it, I see someone else who recommends blocking it.

I definitely see the appeal of (and need for) blocking individuals, but I think that instances are too big and varied to neatly paint everyone with the same brush.

My husband is a high school teacher. He’s had more than a decade of students saying Nazi shit in an attempt to be “edgy.” They seem surprised when he calls them out on their bullshit. His response has made a few (probably too few) of them think twice about how people perceive them because of their words.

Last year was the first time he had a student who spouted that crap because he actually believed it. I think he has a couple of students now who actively identify as fascists. Times, they are a-changin’.

Rigging elections is terrible.

But one party has quietly been working for decades to ensure that they can retain control of Congress with or without a majority of the votes in the country or even in a state.

And now it looks like that won’t be enough, so they’re actively trying to change election maps by any means possible before the midterms.

Democrats can’t sit on their hands and wait for this to happen. If they don’t fight back now, they might not get another opportunity.

Gerrymandering has been a problem for decades, and it’s only getting worse.

It’s possible that the only way to get fair election maps is to min/max the system to the extreme. And once everyone sees how horrible it is, maybe they’ll be willing to actually work together to fix the system.

If we wait for a perfect solution that causes no friction, we’ll be waiting forever. We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

As people age, they start to think about what comes next, and the idea of an afterlife is a lot more appealing than nothingness. I think a lot of non-religious older folks go all in on Pascal’s Wager when they are faced with their own mortality.

This is the most reasonable course of action. Some things can’t be unseen.

You shut your mouth …

He is human and he needs to be loved, just like everybody else does.

Especially if the hanging occurred in a public or outdoor place. That feels like an unusual choice of venue for suicide but a very common choice for a lynching.

Nah, he was manufactured in Mexico.

More recipes need to specify where I should separate a portion to feed to my cat.