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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 1d

You know, putting aside for the moment that Columbus very much does not deserve a day (even by the standards of his contemporaries) but why give HIM the day and not Amerigo Vespucci since the continent and our country are both named after him?

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 1d

Such sad news. My condolences to all who knew and cared for her.

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 1d

Final update (I hope): felt lousy most of the day but perked up this evening and for some bizarre reason all the muscle aches actually loosened by back up enough to crack for the first time in days so…silver lining?

SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 2d

Update: the fever broke quickly. Now I’m just flat-on-my-back (well, side) exhausted.

Still worth it but bleh.

SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

Ah, there’s the vaccine fever. Necessary but very unfun.

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 1d

That happened to my brother once at our local Best Buy. “Oh, good to see you again! How do you like your Batman clock?”

My brother does not own a Batman clock but apparently there’s another stout redhead with Down syndrome in our general vicinity 🤣

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 2d

Every time I am reminded that Peekskill is an actual place and not made up for The Facts of Life I am startled as if it’s brand new information.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

SYMHC Classics: Paul Robeson

Podcast Episode · Stuff You Missed in History Class · 10/11/2025 · 37m

podcasts.apple.com

SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 2d

Did that yesterday and sadly I got no supernatural-ness from it. All I got was a fever this morning and crushing fatigue the rest of the day (but no joint pain like last year) but it’s still worth it.

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 2d

Update: the fever broke quickly. Now I’m just flat-on-my-back (well, side) exhausted.

Still worth it but bleh.

SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

Ah, there’s the vaccine fever. Necessary but very unfun.

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Reposted by SpooWriter

Sara Nović @novicsara.bsky.social · 3d

Good reminder of the why behind dismantling special education this weekend. Eugenics, of course. Depravity. And also, as usual, it's a grift.

ProPublica @propublica.org · 3d

A policy expert described Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s push in favor of private schools as a “great American heist,” funneling money from public schools: “It’s a strategic theft of the future of our country, our kids and our democracy.”

By @megomatz.bsky.social & @jsmithrichards.bsky.social

These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department.

Under Trump, the Department of Education has been bringing in activists hostile to public schools. It could mean a new era of private and religious schools boosted by tax dollars — and the end of publ...

www.propublica.org

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

Ah, there’s the vaccine fever. Necessary but very unfun.

SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

the potential of an atevi paidhi, which is why she let Cajeiri gather up his human associates.

A character with Bren’s compassion and multispecies understanding, Ilisidi’s cunning and political instincts, and Tabini’s aiji-ness? He’s gonna change that planet for the better.

SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

to understand *almost* at gut-level how his atevi aishid thinks, feels, and reacts, I think Cajeiri will attain that understanding from the atevi side. Whether or not Ilisidi *planned* for that to happen by taking him to Phoenix and Reunion, I think she realized

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

Periodic update of me re-reading and then continuing CJ Cherryh’s Foreigner series: I really, REALLY hope the series continues long enough to see who Cajeiri becomes as an adult because he is becoming an extremely compelling character: fully atevi, yes, but just like Bren’s come

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

Yay!

(I need more Discovery alums to stop by and visit Jett and / or Tilly, but even if they don’t: yay!)

TrekCore.com 🖖 @trekcore.com · 3d

STAR TREK: STARFLEET ACADEMY premieres January 15 on Paramount+.

#StarTrek

Reposted by SpooWriter

David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 3d

The end of federal enforcement of special ed laws. Some states - including MN - will likely be ok. But a lot of disabled kids in a lot of states are going to lose the education that federal law and decades of jurisprudence say they are owed.

Education Department wipes out special ed office in shutdown layoffs, union says

The Education Department laid off nearly everyone at the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

www.usatoday.com

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

I think it gets knocked because it had to lay so much foundation and we were not used to long form storytelling in TV at the time. Some - not all but some - of the criticism of season 1 of Rings of Power (which apparently also has a 5 year arc planned) comes from the same place.

SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

So. Much. This.

Sara Nović @novicsara.bsky.social · 3d

I think the most frustrating thing about all of this is that they said they were going to do it before they did it and that didn't matter at all.

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

I mean, I wouldn’t travel here if I didn’t already live here.

(I can’t leave; between bmi and disability restrictions, there’s really no other country that would take my brother, for whom I’m caretaker, and me.)

SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

I feel like maybe the pulmonologist should have mentioned that?

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 3d

So I went for my flu and Covid shots this morning and the tech saw on the paperwork that I was recently diagnosed with asthma (after my lung filled up with fluid). He said that makes me technically immunocompromised and I should be getting at least Covid shots twice a year.

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 5d

Anyway, happy birthday, Teacher Bestie’s Daughter! If I could pull all the strings, I’d finagle a way for you to student teach in my room in a couple semesters.

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 5d

Every once in a while, as she is stepping in to take care of something because I’m busy, I think, “Wait, you’re the six-year-old I used to help with her math homework because for some reason you were more willing to hear me say the same things your mom says.”

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 5d

Teacher Bestie’s daughter has been subbing as a para in our district for 3 years now. She is phenomenal and is going to be an absolutely amazing teacher. She’s long-term subbing in my room this year and I’m so lucky.

But I’m old, LOL.

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 5d

When I met Teacher Bestie in a credential class, she was pregnant with her older daughter. (We discovered later she’d done fieldwork in my brother’s school, which is a cool twist to the story that she knew him first.)

Teacher Bestie’s daughter turned 22 today.

I am very old.

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 5d

I think the unicorn farts thing explains a lot of it. Not all of it but there IS a stereotype that people with DS are cuddly little cuties who are happy all the time.

Obviously there are huge issues with that - it’s dehumanizing, for one thing - but it IS the stereotype.

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SpooWriter @spoowriter.bsky.social · 5d

I have…very many thoughts, few of which would be prudent to say so I’ll just stick with