Category: Teaching

Happy Friday and welcome to the 3rd in the First Amendment Friday series. This is a series looking at the Supreme Court decisions which have given shape to our First Amendment protections. In this phase of the series we are looking at the way that seditious speech has been defined. If you missed the first two installments of this series, you can find them at the links below:

First Amendment Friday 1 – Abrams v US

First Amendment Friday 2 – Gitlow v New York

Cross Posted at Square State

I’ll be posting this over on Daily Kos and Congress Matters tomorrow night. I wanted to give Docudharma the first preview.

Also crossposted at my own blog (for my ten or so regular readers).

Welcome to the fourth installment of “Considered Forthwith.”

This approximately weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies. If you want to read previous dairies in the series, search using the “forthwith” tag or use the link on my blogroll. I welcome criticisms and corrections in the comments.

This week, Considered Forthwith will examine both the House Committee on Standards and Official Conduct and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. These are two small committees with no standing subcommittees. For the sake of ease, I will refer to the two committees as the “House Ethics Committee” and the “Senate Ethics Committee.”  

The sterilizations of indigenous women were covert means of the continuation of the extermination policy against the Indian Nations. At least three indigenous generations from 3,406 women are not in existence now as the result. The sterilizations were not unintentional or negligible. They were genocide. What would the indigenous culture and political landscape be now? One can only imagine, but the sterilizations like the relocations – were forced.

Happy Friday and welcome to the 2nd in the Dog’s series on the Supreme Court Cases defining the boundaries of our 1st Amendment protections under the Constitution. Each week this series will look at one or two Supreme Court decisions. We will look at the facts of the case, the Majority Opinion and the Dissent Opinion. The Dog is not a lawyer so this is strictly a layman’s point of view, but the Dog believes there is value in looking at these things even if one is not a trained professional. If you find the Dog’s analysis to be wrong or you simply disagree, correct him in the comment. This is a learning exercise and the Dog wants to learn too! If you are interested in last weeks installment you can find it here:

Abrams v US

Apologies for the tardiness of this diary. A couple weeks ago, as my husband and I were driving, a huge deer jumped right in front of our car. We were absolutely fine, aside from a little shock and damage to the car itself. So I’ve been taking care of all that fun bureaucratic stuff that goes along with filing a claim.

I was lamenting to my mother how this was impeding the progress of my Ostara diary when she pointed out that hitting that deer has everything to do with Wicca. And she’s right. The stag, or horned god, is a major figure in Wicca. He courts and mates with the Goddess in spring, is sacrificed in the fall, and reborn in the winter.

“Yes, but the stag is supposed to be sacrificed in fall, not spring!” I told her. ”  And not even at Ostara, at Beltaine!”

“Well, this stag was just a little confused,” she said.

Indeed.

Stop Land Run Re – Enactments in Oklahoma Public Schools

WHEREAS, S.P.I.R.I.T is working for the rights of Oklahoma Indians, all American Indians, Indigenous people and the peaceful solution to all differences; and

WHEREAS, the Oklahoma History and US History does not provide the whole and true history of Oklahoma Indians or American Indians (Native Americans), and

WHEREAS, re-enacting the Land Run in public schools and in communities in Oklahoma is demeaning and humiliating to Oklahoma Indians, and

– snip –

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the undersigned and S.P.I.R.I.T, the group formed to help American Indians with matters such as these, formally requests the Oklahoma School Boards, Department of Education, Legislators and public officials to abolish the Land Run re-enactments held annually in this state.

http://www.ipetitions.com/peti…

Happy Friday and welcome to the beginning of a new series First Amendment Friday! This series is going to look at the Supreme Court cases that put a boundary around our Free Speech rights. It is also going to be slightly deep water, so hang in with the Dog; he is going to do his best to provide a layman’s perspective on the cases, which does not get to deep in legal jargon. As with the Friday Constitutional  series the Dog might be wrong in his interpretation, if so, correct him in comments! This is a community learning experience not a concert lecture series.  

I took some time today to assemble the smaller pieces of a larger thought.  “Putting it all in one place” is something I have sometimes had trouble achieving.  With it all together, I may find it needs a tweak hear and there.

In order to not use as much html as would otherwise be required, the graphics are sized to the poem they go with.  Clicking on any of them will open a larger version in a new tab.  

Crossposted on Square State

Happy Friday and Welcome to a bonus installment of Friday Constitutional! This is the Dog’s seemingly never ending series about the Constitution of the United States of America. Up to now we have focused on reading and giving a layman’s interpretation of the Constitution. This week we will take a slightly new direction we will talk about some of the influences of on the construction of the Constitution itself. Specifically we are going to look at what role the governance of the Iroquois Confederacy or the Huadenosaunee had on the structure proposed and ratified by the Constitutional Convention in 1787. For those that have not been following this series and who are interested in the previous installments, you can find them at the following links;  

Welcome to the Dog’s on going series about campaigning from the point of view of the Candidate. If you have been following this series or if you are a candidate or thinking of being one, you might have noticed that we have not talked too much about how you are going to actually win. As everyone knows you need to get more votes than your opponent, but that is not enough to actually design a plan to get those votes. The place that you need to start is the Win Number.  

Fisher Body to build the Fisher GTB-40 bus, a 40-foot ultralightweight hybrid that boasts twice the fuel efficiency of current hybrid buses.  It uses a lightweight, nitrogen-strengthened stainless steel unibody; has no traditional engine for propulsion; and relies on Swiss-made batteries to drive motors for each wheel. The buses are half the weight of other hybrid and diesel models.

A small diesel engine powers a generator that keeps the batteries charged longer. Energy from the brakes is captured for reuse. Automotive News

also posted

Crossposted on Square State

Happy Friday and welcome to the last of the Friday Constitutionals (Wow, that is surprisingly hard to write!)! This is the final of the Dogs 21 week series on the Constitution of the United States. For those of you just coming in, where have you been the last five months? In any case this series takes a layman’s look at the founding document of our nation and its system of laws. If you are interested in the previous installments of this series, you can find them at the following links: