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samulmschneider.bsky.social
Teaching Constitutional studies, poli sci, political theory, US history topics in Virginia. Own views & comments, these don't reflect my institutional affiliations. Husband / cat person / Madisonian / Lincolnite / Trekkie / strategy gamer / metalhead.
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I feel really terrible for my friends who serve in the National Guard right now, who never wanted their service and dedication to be turned towards situations like this one.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

School year is finally over, and I take my National Board exam on Monday, hopefully ending one of the most annoying teacher development projects I’ve ever undertaken. To celebrate, here’s a bunch of random cheap sci-fi (and a few others) I intend to binge through in the next month or two.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Two orgs I've become a lot more bullish on in the last 6-8 years are FIRE and Institute for Justice. Years ago I was a little cynical about those groups ability to be both true civil libertarians and right-leaning libertarians, today I am a lot more convinced they're net constitution good guys.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

one of the remarkable things about the increase in raids at courthouses, schools etc by ICE is how shortsighted it is. We want people - all people! - to send their kids to school and pick them up safely, to attend and obey their court appointments, etc. Putting a chill on those activities is madness

submitted 2 days ago • 32 comments

I've long been optimistic and hopeful for an adaptation of Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama for either the big or small screen, but it just feels so depressingly anachronistic/out of sync given the way the novel tries to depict a fairly harmonious Earth/Solar System government in the background.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Weird they're showing Swan Lake on Fox right now

submitted 3 days ago • 233 comments

Men are too emotional to hold positions of power

submitted 3 days ago • 5 comments

was not expecting to find a new music video for “Psycho Killer” today, starring Saoirse Ronan (!), but my goodness is that a performance designed to give the viewer a panic attack or what

submitted 3 days ago • 5 comments

summer vacation is one of the worst things about American school calendars. Four quarters, each with two or three weeks of vacation between + more little 3 day weekends, would make everyone more sane - parents whose childcare mgmt's simplified, teachers who don't do a yr of work in 3/4 of a yr, etc.

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

spending this week reviewing everything I forgot about world history and economics after almost two decades of specializing in poli sci and US history is....humbling. Making me do this is the only good thing I'll say for the National Board certification process.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

on a totally crass political note, the way the GOP messaging apparatus is fine-tuning their messages on trans people in sports and 'criminal gangs' has me pretty anxious about how they'll use that messaging in the upcoming VA state elections.

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

watching Babylon 5 for the first time since I was a kid and I'm really torn between "holy shit, the bones of an exceptionally relevant 30-years-later remake are so obvious here" and "holy shit, any remake in a contemporary media and financial incentive environment would mess this up so terribly."

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

My city is yet again under a boil water advisory...problems of urban infrastructure and governance are hard to solve! Can't just fire everyone or work harder - the difficulty of accessing the financial, human, and logistical resources to do better is at the center of the whole history of problems!

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Mostly like Amtrak as a mode of travel because I'm on the East Coast, but it really is astounding how unpredictable and crappy it becomes the instant you make it south of DC. One of the best examples of "should have been a project we could accomplish in a few years, but has languished for almost 20.

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

Most of the emails I get from weaker students at the end of year are AI-generated or AI-assisted in an attempt to punch up their precision, politeness and formality as they ask for some consideration (which I will often give) as grades are finalized. But letters which don't sound like them...sigh.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Some of their other more recent albums have been very strong too, but for my money 'Polygondwanaland' and 'Flying Microtonal Banana' remain the two best King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard album. They're eclectic but coherent, distinctive but not purely experimental or psychedelic, evocative, etc.

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

yeah man that fucking sucks, why did we let people start direct depositing their income into the fake-money casino

submitted 13 days ago • 17 comments