Updates, Revisions, and Reconsiderations

Today, we’re re-visiting and updating a few stories Curmie has posted this calendar year.  The First Felon’s antics are too predictably heinous to bother to mention, but his minions are still fair game.

Pete Hegseth.  Back in January, Curmie wrote that “The reason not to confirm Hegseth is that he is spectacularly unqualified for the job.  It’s not all the negatives; it’s the utter absence of any positives.”  Curmie stands by that statement; certainly any competent President, even one stupid enough to have appointed him to begin with, would have fired his ass after the Enola Gay kerfuffle and especially that Signal chat business.  Still, the fact that he remains the perfect storm of arrogance and stupidity seems pretty relevant, too.

The Cortland Standard.  Back in March, Curmie mourned the demise of the daily newspaper in the small city where he went to high school.  A couple months later, on Curmie’s anniversary, as it happens, came the story that the paper had been bought out of bankruptcy and would be back in business on a Tuesday through Saturday schedule, effective May 17.  This matters little to the overwhelming majority of readers of this blog, but it may portend a trend… we can hope.

Sarah Inama.  March was also when Curmie wrote about Ms. Inama, an Idaho middle school teacher who ran afoul of racist morons school administrators for a poster that proclaimed “Everyone is welcome here.”  Yes, really.  She is now in a new district, where administrators rejected the “guidance” of the state Censor in Chief Attorney General, who asserted the poster was political and therefore prohibited; instead, they declared in a memo sent to all staff that “‘Everyone is Welcome Here’ is the law.  It is not a political statement.”  We’ll see how this all plays out.

Melissa Calhoun.  Ms. Calhoun is believed to be the first Florida teacher fired for referring to a student by their preferred name without explicit parental permission.  Curmie described her case, up to that point, in April.  She was, indeed, de facto fired for the offense of having some respect for a student.  She claims she knew the student before the stupid law went into effect and used the offending appellation out of habit, “an unfortunate oversight.”  This may or may not be true, of course.  Over the summer, there seemed to have been a settlement by which Calhoun could keep her teaching credentials for a year of probation, but the district won’t rehire her or even allow her to volunteer for this academic year.  Calhoun is apparently looking for work outside education, and there is speculation that a lawsuit may be forthcoming.

Kilmar Abrego-Garcia.  It’s unlikely we’ll ever get to the truth about what crimes KA-G may or may not have committed years ago.  As Curmie wrote in April, the first round of this ever-evolving brouhaha was about due process, period, the end.  The feds didn’t have a case, but they sent him off to a Salvadorean gulag, anyway.  The Trump administration then dawdled when SCOTUS unanimously demanded his return.  He did eventually arrive back in the US, but was almost immediately under investigation related to that traffic stop in Tennessee in 2022. 

We’re now hearing the feds claim that he was smuggling illegal aliens because he was in MS-13.  Previous attempts to show such gang membership have been laughably inept, but now there are “co-conspirators” ready to testify against him… in exchange for something, no doubt.  Anyway, now the government wants to send him off to Liberia, of all places.  And right now.  Don’t ask why, Gentle Reader, you probably don’t want to try to track the tortured logic.  The chances are pretty good that literally everyone involved in this case on either side has told at least one egregious lie.  But once again, due process is the issue. 

Boy My Greatness.  Back in September, Curmie wrote about the suppression of a student-directed production of Zoe Senese-Grossberg’s play at the University of Central Oklahoma.  The university decided to blame the utterly unwarranted censorship on the theatre department.  Curmie commented, “Gentle Reader, if you believe the decision was de facto made by the theatre department, Curmie has some ocean-front property in Kansas he’s willing to sell to you for cheap.”  No, this level of stupidity could only be perpetrated by administrators. 

UCO juniors Maggie Lawson and Liberty Welch might have been a little staggered by the abrupt (and stupid) cancellation of their play on campus, but it didn’t take them long to recover.  They told their cast that they had the option to leave because trying to produce it on their own was going to be more complicated than a production at school.  Curmie, with decades of experience in such matters, knew exactly what the response would be: “rock on, we want to do it.”

The company started a GoFundMe, hoping for $2000 but expecting “like, $200 and, like, a high five. Like, ‘you go girls!’”  They brought in just short of $10,000.  And they found a venue.  And they opened their show on October 23, two weeks after they were originally scheduled to go up at OCU.  Word is, it went well.  Of course it did.  Those extra barriers just added another layer of incentive.  Curmie is proud of those students, even if he does hope they’ll get the hell out of Oklahoma so they won’t need to go through this crap every time they want to do something more controversial than Harvey or You Can’t Take It with You.

Scams and Things That Smell Like Scams.  Curmie wrote in particular about the barrage of letters pretending to be from an insurance company with which Curmie was already affiliated (they weren’t, of course), and an ad for the UpSide app with an absurdly exaggerated claim.  Well, Curmie heard that same UpSide ad just a couple of days ago, and yes, they’re still making shit up.  He also got another scammy letter about his car insurance… and last week one about his homeowner’s insurance.  At least they’re branching out?

But the commercials for various gambling apps and “you must act now” crap aimed at folks on Medicare are getting annoyingly ubiquitous.  Back in the days when there was a functioning Consumer Protection Bureau, there’d be a chance to get the objectively false claims off the air.  The Trump administration is taking notes for their own next scam.

The Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.  The good news is that none of the nine universities contacted by the DOE signed on to that absurd document.  Seven, including Curmie’s undergraduate alma mater, rejected it outright; the other two supplied comments but didn’t agree to the terms.  Another trio of universities, including Curmie’s doctoral alma mater, were contacted after the first nine schools had made their decisions.  Exactly how specific things got is unclear—university officials say they were not asked to sign the document, but made it clear they wouldn’t do so, anyway.  It remains to be seen if the Trump administration is willing to listen to what university leaders are saying or if they’ll keep up the blustering and bullying tactics.

The Short-Lived Truce in Palestine.  Last month, Curmie credited Donald Trump for his efforts in bringing about a ceasefire and prisoner exchange in the Mideast.  He did warn that “There is too much animosity, too much destruction, too much history, to be overly optimistic.”  Sometimes Curmie hates being right.  The peace lasted less than a week, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of optimism for the future, although we can but hope that Trump and others will keep trying.  At least the hostages on both sides were released…

New topic next time!

Today in Good Trouble: Melissa Calhoun

When educational policy is in the hands of dominionist jackasses Republican politicians (or their minions), bad things are likely to happen.  There’s the recent case in Idaho that Curmie wrote about a couple of weeks ago in which a poster reading “everyone is welcome here” was deemed political in nature.  (There’s a shocking but not surprising update on that story, by the way). 

There’s the ongoing attempt to require that public schools in Oklahoma teach the Bible; that one is currently “stayed” but not shot down by the state Supreme Court. 

There’s the attempt in Texas to give parents taxpayer-funded vouchers to pay for private school tuition (or to homeschool!), decreasing funding for public school in the process.  This should be unconstitutional, but isn’t, because the conservative majority on SCOTUS care more about ideology than about the Constitution want to pander to rich Christians think denying public funding for religious education is somehow a violation of the First Amendment.

But today, Gentle Reader, Curmie wants to write about a case in Florida, in which Melissa Calhoun (photo above), a high school English teacher at an arts magnet school in Brevard County since 2019, was de facto fired (she will not be re-hired for the next academic year) for violating an absurd law that prohibits teachers from addressing students by their preferred name.  This is all in the pursuit of “parents’ rights,” which is a catchy if deceitful term for denying students’ rights.

As Curmie wrote two years ago

The seemingly innocuous provisions of the [federal] Parental Bill of Rights actually provide a de facto open invitation for every homophobe, Christian nationalist, racist, or garden variety anti-intellectual within hailing distance to remove any topics of discussion, course materials, library books, or whatever else that might disrupt their myopic and theocratic view of the world. What purports to be an exercise in ideological balance and freedom of expression, therefore, is precisely the opposite.

In terms of what is immediately relevant in this case, which appears to be the first of its kind anywhere in the country, what is at stake is students’ rights to define themselves and to be treated with respect.  There are all sorts of problems with the law, not least of which is that no teacher worthy of the name would fail to call students what they want to be called, except in cases of something objectively offensive.  By “objectively” here, Curmie means a term that would clearly be offensive irrespective of questions of race, gender, religion.

Once again, Curmie quotes himself:

The laws in question, of course, are a paean to cis-gendering at the expense of individual liberty. What passes for the argument suggests that insisting on parental control over what a child can be called will somehow preserve that kid’s retention in the ranks of the cis-gendered. It won’t, of course; it will only add another layer of stress to a young citizen trying to figure things out.

Also, of course, there are some asshole parents out there who think they’re being cute by naming their kid something weird.  (Curmie once had Spring Day and Justin Case in the same class.)  Some poor kid named “Fauntleroy” or, God forbid, “X Æ A-12” or “Techno Mechanicus” is flat-out gonna get teased.  And whereas Muskian spawn are unlikely to venture into a public school, Daddy is a big enough asshole to refuse, on a whim, to let them go by “Bud” or “TM” or whatever. 

Think that couldn’t happen?  Curmie’s standard practice was to call roll on the first day of class by reading the surname and asking the students to tell him what they’d like to be called.  Some wanted to be known by their middle name or surname; some went by initials; a couple went by “Bud” or J.R. (for “Junior”); some used a standard nickname.  One young man said he’d like to be called Bob.  OK, Bob, no problem.  But he came up to me after class and said that if I ever had occasion to talk to his parents, I should always refer to him as Robert or he’d get in trouble.  Yes, really.  The lad was 19!

As Curmie wrote a couple of years ago, 

... if young Dana (to pick one of more than a few names that could refer to a boy or a girl) wants to be Daniel or Danielle (or Dan or Danny, or Dani…), and the parents object… THEY’RE THE PROBLEM. Curmie shudders to contemplate the fate of children who cannot trust their parents to support them as they work through questions of identity. And now, the state wants to take away their sanctuary: adults who see them as they believe themselves to be instead of what the parents want them to be.

The corollary to this is that if I’m in a class with my friend who wants to be called “Stephanie,” I’m gonna call her (or him) Stephanie, regardless of what their name was last year, or even last week.  And every kid in the class is going to follow suit.  So the teacher who submits to the absurd law that says that child must be called “Jacob” alienates not only Stephanie, but every other kid in the class… or, at the very least, all of Stephanie’s friends.  This does not create a positive learning environment.  Of course, the overwhelming majority of GOP pols aren’t actually interested in actual education, like knowing that the Civil War was about slavery or that there are millions of people alive today who remember when segregation was a thing.

Moreover, literally any deviation from the name at birth is verboten.  So if Susan wants to be called Suzy, there’s a form for that.  And when she’s in middle school and wants to be Suzi with a heart instead of a dot over the “i,” it’s another form.  And when she gets to high school and wants to be Sue, it’s another form.  And what happens if she still gets called Suzy by a teacher who goes to her church and has known her all her life?  Can that teacher get fired for the slip-up?  Can that teacher still call her Suzy outside of school?

Want to go by your middle name?  Get Mom and Dad to sign the form.  Curmie is so old that he remembers when Republicans were opposed to bureaucratic administrivia.

But revenons à nos moutons.  Is it reasonable that Calhoun should be out of a job for the transgression (get it? transgression) of acknowledging the right of a student to self-identify?  Well, as Curmie was notorious for saying in his Asian theatre classes, yes and no.  On the one hand, even stupid laws are laws, and disobeying them will inevitably have consequences.  She knew the risk.  On the other, willingness to stand against cruelty and stupidity ought to be applauded, not censured.  She did what she believes was right.  Curmie concurs with her assessment.  So, apparently, do her students and their parents.

The district bosses, having either made the announcement or confirmed its accuracy, are in a no-win situation.  They can’t follow through without being hammered by anyone with the slightest hint of empathy.  But they can’t back down without incurring the wrath of Ron (he’s an adult so we can call him that without a note from his mom) DeSantis and his merry band of howling banshees.

The best solution for Calhoun is to finish out the school year and head for a state that is a little more willing to face 21st century than Florida seems to be.  She could teach… or go on the lecture circuit for, probably, more money.  The best solution for the district is to concentrate on real problems, like the principal and teacher busted for partying with a couple hundred kids with alcohol, drugs, and weapons present.  Up until this week, nearly three months after the incident, those actual (alleged) criminals were on paid leave.  Oh, and the response from school board president Gene Trent?  “When we have thousands of employees, things happen.” 

La la how the life goes on.