Maerad 🍂 retweeted
I just watched a video of an American High School English Teacher reading REAL responses from her students after they read The Great Gatsby.
And I'm not even joking, I had to pause it because I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
These are 12th graders. SENIORS. About to graduate. About to vote, go to college, get jobs, run this country.
And they couldn't understand basic themes. They couldn't write a complete sentence. Some of them thought Gatsby was the villain because he had money. Some thought Daisy was a hero. The reading comprehension was just... gone.
We have a SERIOUS education crisis in America and nobody wants to talk about it.
If we don't address this, we have a horrible future ahead of us. Like, genuinely horrible.
And these kinds of responses are to be expected! Did you see the stats? 12th grade reading results in 2024 showed that reading levels in America are the LOWEST they've ever been since the assessment began in 1992. The lowest in 30+ years!
We took the books out of schools. We replaced them with iPads. We told kids that their feelings matter more than facts. We told teachers they can't fail anyone. We let TikTok raise our kids instead of literature.
And this is the result.
A generation that can't read. Can't think critically. Can't understand a 100-year-old book that is literally about THEM - about the American Dream, about fake people, about chasing money.
Gatsby would be rolling in his grave if he knew kids today can't even understand his story.
We need to ban phones in schools nationally. We need to bring back real books, real tests, real standards. And we need to start holding parents accountable too.
Because if a senior in high school can't read The Great Gatsby and tell you what it's about, we have failed. Not them. WE have failed them.
And we are all going to pay for it.
Maerad 🍂 retweeted
I think Charlotte Brönte articulated this well in "Jane Eyre":
"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth.
Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.
It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex."
There is nothing wrong with domestic tasks in and of themselves, but if one is confined to nothing but those tasks, it isn't good for a person, whether man or woman.
This quoted post is unavailable.
Maerad 🍂 retweeted
People often say Jane Austen is among the greatest female novelists.
But she is actually among the greatest novelists, period. Easily in the top ten.
As C.S. Lewis said: “Her books have only two faults and both are damnable. They are too few and too short."
Maerad 🍂 retweeted
“Years do odd things to identity.” A poem by Ursula K. Le Guin.
ALT Leaves BY URSULA K. LE GUIN Years do odd things to identity. What does it mean to say I am that child in the photograph at Kishamish in 1935? Might as well say I am the shadow of a leaf of the acacia tree felled seventy years ago moving on the page the child reads. Might as well say I am the words she read or the words I wrote in other years, flicker of shade and sunlight as the wind moves through the leaves.
Maerad 🍂 retweeted
This is really good
How to Talk to Someone Who Is Still Inside the Spell,
“Until you understand that, every conversation will end the same way: they get defensive, you get frustrated, and the relationship takes another hit while the belief gets stronger.”
by @pittparents open.substack.com/pub/pitt/p…
Maerad 🍂 retweeted
Absolutely stunning essay by @DouglasKMurray about the crisis in France. It includes this quote.
thefp.com/p/douglas-murray-f…
Maerad 🍂 retweeted
Every now and again I go back to this passage from Chesterton and it just gets better each time
Maerad 🍂 retweeted
My painting AUTUMN CORNFIELD
All prints on sale! Ends Sunday. Use code FALL20 for 20% off. 🍻❤️🎨
Maerad 🍂 retweeted
This has got to be the best analysis yet.
1. "Only 94 medals came from the professional level!"
Yes that's irrelevant. This issue is about female athletes at every level of sport and of all ages, the majority of which are not professional.
2. "They include males with DSDs!"
Yes, males with DSDs are still male and thus are included in the list of males in female sport. However, I believe the CWA report narrowed the scope to "trans" ID'd athletes only and only those from the USA, so this is a bit of a moot point anyway
3. "Names appear more than once!"
Yes, because often, male athletes have stolen more than one medal. They enter many women's competitions.
4. "They include non athletic events like pageants and baking!"
They do not include non athletic events. Those are listed on a separate page that explicitly says "not included" And there are no baking events yet, to my knowledge, though if there is a women's baking competition a man enters, I would be more than happy to record that as well.
5. "Out of the 1,349 individual entries this organization notes (a far cry from their promoted claims of 2,000+ OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALS), 77 of them are DSD"
He's looking at the "awards" page, which are separate from medals. Awards, like MVP, are given to athletes regardless of the outcome of competition. Medals are based solely on outcome of competition. So here we're looking at the wrong information.
The CWA report was also not talking about Olympic gold medals. They simply said "gold medals" which means a 1st place finish at any level of sport in which the athlete is recognized as the winner.
And again, the CWA narrowed the scope to "trans" identified in the USA, so DSD males outside the US are irrelevant.
6. "They have a "donate" button! It's a grift!"
I added the button after I kept getting requests for it from people who wanted to support me. I make maybe 20 dollars a month in donations with the occasional one-off very generous 50 or 100 dollar gift. This does not even cover the money I spend on research and upkeep for the site.
A "grift" is when you lie and trick others to make money. I believe in my cause, am not lying about anything, and certainly do not make a profit.
And there we have it, the thorough "debunking" of the 2,300 or so medals the CWA reported on out of the 6,000+ 1st place finishes by males in female events the website has documented in total.
Maerad 🍂 retweeted
George R.R. Martin es el único escritor que dice lo que muchos pensamos:
“Donde quiera que se mire, hay más guionistas y productores deseosos de tomar grandes historias y ‘hacerlas suyas’. No parece importar si el material original fue escrito por Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, Ursula K. Le Guin, J. R. R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen o… bueno, cualquiera.
No importa cuán importante sea el escritor, no importa cuán bueno sea el libro, siempre parece haber alguien disponible que piensa que puede hacerlo mejor, ansioso por tomar la historia y ‘mejorarla’.
Novecientas noventa y nueve veces de cada mil, lo empeoran.” — George R. R. Martin
Y no podría estar más de acuerdo con él. Se puede recortar, juntar tramas o mover escenas. El medio lo exige. Pero el problema no es ese.
El problema llega cuando cambian el carácter de los personajes, les inventan conflictos que nunca tuvieron o eliminan precisamente aquello que explicaba sus decisiones.
Ahí ya no estás adaptando. Estás contando otra cosa con los mismos nombres.
Adaptar no debería significar cambiar lo que ya estaba bien o arreglar lo que no estaba roto.
