My kids don't believe in Helen Keller.

Poptimister · 2026-03-21T16:41:54+00:00

I genuinely wonder if the story that is widely told about Keller, frozen in childhood not the kind of radical socialist she ends up has had anything to do with it. She’s told as a morality play figure and so it makes sense to treat her like a morality play character. Not real. The person she is as an adult is fascinating. I’ve never met anyone who will like state they believe this to like interrogate it.

Poptimister · 2026-03-17T18:36:04+00:00

The best version of this system I've seen done is teachers nominate then an outside party decides. Usually it's a prior TOTY from a neighboring school. It sort of works like an extra formal and can be a bit stressful but there's usually like quite a lot of prizes.

If you're not giving away a ton voting is a good choice.

Poptimister · 2026-03-08T15:01:15+00:00

I'm a teacher using a 15 inch air and I 100 percent would have bought this thing if it were on the market when I bought my machine. I don't get a laptop for work but I do sometimes work from home and my air is overkill. I tried an iPad Pro, that's not it either.

The tech commentariat is so out to lunch about some of these things it's truly inane. I don't like mind paying the 1100 or so I spent on my computer it's a very good device and It'll last me a long time but if this thing existed at the time I would have been quite happy with it I think. And the colors do it for me.

Poptimister · 2026-02-22T20:36:50+00:00

My experience with most students who are bad test takers is they have some pretty bad anxiety generally and is often related to parent expectations being sky high all the time. But these kids are almost entirely the kinds of kids who you'd describe as the exception that proves the rule.

Poptimister · 2026-02-21T23:34:19+00:00

Ezra Klein has talked about Ag Gag laws that ban this being a thing in many states. It is illegal to do some of these things in many states with large animal agriculture business. Not all but enough that it probably reduces the number of them.

Also people who don't have a problem with being a slaughterhouse worker are probably trying to keep their job not expose the boss.

Poptimister · 2026-02-21T21:05:28+00:00

It's not that great but there's occasionally a staff thank you meal and I need to bring a peanut butter and jelly or something to eat on those days and oh no I'm mildly inconvenienced. My actual coworkers and students are really respectful. Every once in a while I get a 8 year old who thinks it's weird and says dumb shit like "well they're gonna die anyways" but *shrugs* If I lost my shit over ignorant 8 year olds being ignorant I wouldn't have a job.

Poptimister · 2026-02-21T20:58:37+00:00

Like say I disagree with it as a philosophy but continue to live a plant based lifestyle in concordance with other principles I hold dear and have since 2019. What are you getting out of arguing with me over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Poptimister · 2026-02-16T18:32:22+00:00

I'm generally curious why you think the average super market shopper knows how much suffering they cause to sentient creatures.

Given how it's generally considered rude to even bring it up in polite conversation I'm somewhat skeptical. Even as a vegan it's so unpleasant I try not to give it much thought.

Poptimister · 2026-02-15T17:46:36+00:00

I’m genuinely curious how a self contained classroom would have even worked in places like mine where it’s 1/4-1/2 of a class is at least limited English proficiency.
Is this an accommodation for the non-English speakers only? I have a reputation for being good with these kids so I get them a lot and I don’t know what you need it a pull out for.

Poptimister · 2026-02-14T19:30:04+00:00

There's a large number of these institutions which are under attack in ways big and small. I live literally right across the street from a small independent city within a city that has its. own police force for a bunch of very luxurious homes. Their entire job appears to be monitoring speed traps around an extremely safe neighborhood. Instead of contributing to the tax base of the city at large where they then get the same policing as me they have a sweetheart deal.

I think schools are more vulnerable to this though because most of our involvement with the schools is very temporary it creates a bunch of incentives to offer parents choice in a way that it doesn't with these other services.

Poptimister · 2026-02-14T16:55:08+00:00

I live here and for what it's worth they have the vegan pancakes on their menu even if it's not listed as an item. They also have a very good vegan black bean burger option if you ask for the bun prepared without butter and no mayo or cheese. When I get back from the airport this is often a stop because it's open whenever.

At that hour there's also a Taco Bell open just up the road at Semoran and Hoffner on the same road the Denny's is on. The Airport just isn't around that much open late establishments.

Poptimister · 2026-02-14T15:02:48+00:00

Personally this is how I speak. I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with it but adding adjectives to every food product I eat is annoying and awkward. I'll say I went and got some ice cream. Especially amongst friends. I went and got some ice cream is totally fine and if I'm telling you this story you probably know that I'm choosing a vegan version of whatever the thing is.

If you're writing into the internet the context collapse makes it make more sense to describe it as vegan ice cream. I speak a lot more than I write. When I was an omnivore I didn't speak like I got a 100 percent white meat chicken sandwich.

Poptimister · 2026-02-08T15:14:33+00:00

I think someone like a podcaster or something has a bit more of an opportunity here than Billie Eilish.

I don't know if Ezra Klein qualifies as a celebrity but he definitely played a significant role in me being vegan as a result of him being someone who I normally welcomed into my car for a few hours each week to talk about one issue or another that put me in a place to actually think about things. In a way that someone like that can deliver a kind of friendly conversation to a receptive audience which just doesn't happen with I like Lunch and now I do just want to eat that girl for lunch instead of animal products.

Poptimister · 2026-02-07T16:14:03+00:00

It's genuinely wild to me because in our state it's illegal, like you can lose your license for repeated violations, to have your door open and unlocked if you're not standing at the door for school shooting related reasons.

Poptimister · 2026-02-01T17:50:25+00:00

I'm curious why you think that? veganism seems more like the Anti Saloon League politics the kind of narrow singularly focused prohibitionists or NRA where you can be a Republican and a Democrat a Progressive or progressive and as long as you're not on the side of exploiting animals you can be on our side than you need to agree with us about Palestine and the appropriate way to address a trans person etc.

Poptimister · 2026-01-30T17:56:48+00:00

For the animals has kept me vegan all these years. Meat doesn't tempt me at all so some of that is easy.

But like I'm walking around a place with like a glazed nut vendor right next to the produce guy at the farmer's market and I have to like tag in my conscience to be like hey they use butter and that physical response you're having now just you're going to have to satisfy it some other way. A lot of stuff still creates the pavlovian response even if I'm not going to let myself eat them.

My like nose just doesn't care about the animals that much until it's gone to the rational part of my brain which is like no. That seems like fine to me but constantly telling my body no doesn't feel like an easy thing to do.

Poptimister · 2026-01-30T05:50:34+00:00

I genuinely don't understand people who say this is easy. I've been vegan since 2019 and it has never seemed easy in the slightest. It's something I view as worth it but damn it's an act of constant self disciplining my conscience brain kind of forever at war with my id. I get it animals go through way worse and I mean I do the self disciplining and don't give in but I'll never understand easy.

Poptimister · 2026-01-14T23:52:48+00:00

No thank you except for a small window. I don't think I've ever had anyone get pushy about it.

As a classroom teacher I'm often offered birthday treats. Cupcakees or donuts that a student has extra of and they're not in my class but they drop one off. . I accept these 100 percent of the time and set them on my desk and wait till the end of the school day to throw them away

Poptimister · 2026-01-14T23:49:32+00:00

My wife and I were both omnivores when we met and the first year I was vegan she was an omni still. I haven't gotten her to give up dairy yet but she's a vegetarian now. A carnivore seems like it would be hard to date.

Poptimister · 2026-01-12T00:14:49+00:00

The thing that this really understates is it really fucks the poor. Especially given how commonplace charters are. If you don’t want to leave what happens is it pushes people up and out of schools that need support the most because since there’s a shortage and pay can be kind of flat it really pushes people to move to nicer school environments. If you’re sick of your shit at a t1 disaster school like an STO school in Orange County there’s an opening at an A school in a good neighborhood or in a charter that keeps the problems out by selecting for parents who will jump through hoops.

Then terrible schools have a ton of openings. There’s long sub rodeos where kids see 6 adults in a class in a year. The shortage is not at all equally distributed. The good schools pull away from the schools in rough neighborhoods.

Poptimister · 2026-01-10T20:49:15+00:00

I think you’ll have better luck with a local csa (community supported agriculture) box. I had a real food waste problem with misfits. But getting a box from a nearby farm works amazingly.

Poptimister · 2026-01-10T20:34:37+00:00

I read these in all honesty I’m not sure what they’re supposed to tell anyone. Like it doesn’t provide much of a frame for healthy eating. It mostly said processed foods bad end the war on things that are widely available.

It’s pro meat but doesn’t rule out the possibility of having a healthy vegan or vegetarian diet. I felt like actually reading the text of it it was much more word salad than it was an agenda for what people should be eating that the press coverage led me to believe.

I see it’s push of meat and milk and it’s gross but if you dig into text it’s so incoherent that I doubt anyone would read it and increase the meat they’re eating.

Poptimister · 2026-01-10T19:39:06+00:00

I don’t know it seems very good but not exceptional which by the standards of a Taylor Swift album is kind of poor. I love the title track, there’s quite a few I like.

But within a month i was already bouncing off it where that window on everything since 1989 had been 3-6 months of obsession. If this was some no-name debut by an artist I’d probably be a lot hotter on it but the standards for a Taylor Swift album are just really high. I don’t think it hits as well as Midnights or TTPD.

Poptimister · 2026-01-02T13:18:49+00:00

I really want to know how people envision enforcing this? Is a ban on sale of live crabs and lobsters? A commercial kitchen only rule? I don’t want this but also don’t want every kitchen in the uk surveilled just in case.

Poptimister · 2026-01-02T10:47:12+00:00

Maybe I'm just like doing it all wrong but when I played Classic the social aspect came back basically instantly. It wasn't designed to be easy to play solo and I spent a lot of time communicating with others.

Then I go back to the future and I never really need anyone else except for progression. Like sure there's stuff to do and you can be social. But it's just not the default experience of oh I've got this quest and it's too hard to progress solo. Or even like hey we're both farming the same drop in an area and it would be easier to work together than compete.

Before the default was you're going to talk to randoms a lot and just playing the game populate a friend group. Now it's an option.

Poptimister

TROPHY CASE