Wednesday’s Workwear Report: Holly Knitted Jacket
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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
This knitted jacket from Boden is making my preppy heart sing. The striped accents look delightfully collegiate, but the sweater-blazer look is perfect for the office.
I would wear this over a black blouse and slim black pants for an easy business casual outfit. If the green color isn’t your thing, it comes in nine other colorways.
The jacket is $126, marked down from $180, at Boden and comes in sizes 2-22.
Some of our latest favorite lady jackets for work include sweater jackets from ba&sh, Boden, and J.Crew. (M.M.LaFleur just got some also!) On the budget side of things, check out Mango, Tuckernuck (XXS-XXL), and CeCe. If you prefer a lined, more Chanel-style jacket for work, do take a look at IRO and L'Agence; Mango, J.Crew Factory, and Madewell often have them at budget-friendly prices.
Looking for something with more of a cardigan feel? Some of our favorite classic cardigans for the office as of 2025 include those below — definitely check Talbots and J.Crew Factory if you're looking for plus sizes, and Quince is always a nice affordable option. Veronica Beard and Brooks Brothers both keep a bunch of options in stock.
Sales of note for 2/14/25 (Happy Valentine's Day!):
- Nordstrom – Winter Sale, up to 60% off! 7850 new markdowns for women
- Ann Taylor – Up to 40% off your full-price purchase — and extra 60% off sale
- Banana Republic Factory – 50% off everything + 15% off (readers love their suiting as well as their silky shirts like this one)
- Boden – 15% off new season styles
- Eloquii – 300+ styles $25 and up
- J.Crew – 40% of your purchase – prices as marked
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site and storewide + extra 50% off clearance
- Rothy's – Final Few: Up to 40% off last-chance styles
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – Flash sale ending soon – markdowns starting from $15, extra 70% off all other markdowns (final sale)
Anyone see the article in the Atlantic, “The Democrats Show Why They Lost?” It’s…not a good situation. The DNC opened with a land acknowledgment and an “intricate” discussion of the bylaws concerning non-b*nary representation on the leadership committee, then refused to take responsibility for losing the election, welcomed activist interruptions, and vowed to double down on loser issues next time around. We are so screwed. That said, the article was quite good. I don’t have a gift link available but I know a lot of you subscribe.
As someone from Canada where land acknowledgements are normal because no one pretends we didn’t steal land or commit atrocities, it’s wild to me that they’re so controversial.
I don’t think they’re that controversial because people deny history – but they’re getting increasingly contentious on the left because they’re so performative, self-congratulatory, and meaningless (as in, not tied to any action).
The acknowledgment is the action. Acknowledgments are just about no longer pretending that it wasn’t a vast empty space prior to 1776.
It’s like in the 1960s, saying ‘good
morning ladies and gentlemen’ to a law school class that has women vs ‘good morning gentlemen’.
Acknowledgement is an action.
I think it’s one thing in Canada, but in the USA, I think it more often comes across as a substitute for needed action and an instance of talking over people in a political party that has a lot of power to take action and to elevate Indigenous voices if they wanted to. But as usual they’d rather tokenize people to demonstrate that they’re less bigoted than their opponents while their track record shows how much they really care.
You have to be a real snowflake to be bothered by a few words about the history of the land you’re on.
This is like not teaching white children about sl@very because they might feel bad.
+1
Who did we steal land from? Oh right – people who stole it from other people.
Very, very, VERY few groups are the descendants the original immigrants to empty land. That’s why it’s performative.
Same. Land acknowledgements open practically every meeting with outside stakeholders. It’s normal.
Yes, everyone has learned to pronounce Anishinaabe!
In academia in the US, pretty much every meeting has land acknowledgement. It’s very routine to me and doesn’t seem controversial to me either. (Caveat that on the whole academia is of course very left-leaning. But something like tr*ns women in women’s sports feels controversial to me in a way land acknowledgement doesn’t).
Out of curiosity, how long have they been common in Canada? in the US, it seems like mostly they are new in the last 10 years – except maybe in very very activist circles
New in the last 5-7 years but very standard now at any large conference or multiparty meeting like universities, govt, continuing legal education seminars etc. Not at like client meetings or something. Often generically worded.
I don’t want to be this person, because I understand the purpose and intent, but they do often come across as performative or as a box-checking act. Particularly when you’re attending a lot of very similar events at my university.
My university was also pretty bad at supporting Indigenous students in culturally competent ways and didn’t seem to want to do better.
As a US resident, I’ve always had the impression that Canadians were more sincere about their appreciation of and action on indigenous peoples’ issues. Here land acknowledgements come across as performative and insincere, just like demands for pronouns. It’s all navel-gazing and no substance.
Our local land acknowledgments conveniently leave out how white English-speaking Americans pushed out the Spanish-speaking Californios. It just goes from the Native Americans to last week, basically.
Canadian land acknowledgements also do not get into the history of various colonial era disputes between the English and the French. The colonial era was a blip on the millennia of Indigenous land stewardship.
It’s not really a “blip” in California or most of the Western US, considering how Spanish speakers were treated after those areas became part of the US and are still treated today.
Seventh Sister…what? I’m descended from the Spanish settlers and don’t pretend they were anything but settlers.
Honestly I’m from Canada and find them incredibly performative. And I’m left-leaning and totally acknowledge the stolen land. But the fact that my major company has some random person read these before company wide meetings discussing shareholder returns causes major inward eyerolls.
For those of you saying they are normal in Canada, what industry do you work in?
They’re such a controversial thing in the US, but I’ve never actually heard one
Previously worked at an NGO, now work in shipping (which is an old school boys club). Standard in both fields.
I’m in real estate/urban planning and DH is in agricultural research. Common in both.
I work in higher ed, and they have been commonplace for the past 5 years.
They were standard at the insurance and financial services company where I worked.
At my husband’s Latin honors (University) awards here in Boulder, I heard one, but this type of thing is very common in Boulder (“26 square miles surrounded by reality”) which is very progressive/leftist.
I love that — “26 square miles surrounded by reality.” Signed, your friend from the People’s Republic of Arlington.
Hello from Berkeley.
Lol – Seattle in the house!
I don’t see them as controversial. Surprised you’ve never heard one. It should be a first step, not an end, toward engaging Indigenous communities. Especially when Trump questions their citizenship, and ICE is profiling tribal members in the southwest!
I’ve seen them done on Australian TV shoes, too, and no one blinks an eye.
I have never heard one either and it seems over the top. The kind of think some ivory tower academics would do. Let’s apologize for slavery and Japanese internment at the start of every meeting too.
Slavery and Japanese internment are different. Being Indigenous isn’t a racial or ethnic category like Black or Japanese. It’s a political identity, being a dual citizen of a tribal Nation and the US.
Native Nations still have a sovereign government to government relationship with the US. Treaties are still the highest law of the land.
Well they are here. And democrats wasting time on puffy nonsense is a real problem.
Sometimes I have hope, then someone calls genocide puffy nonsense and I’m knocked back to reality.
Coming from American politicians, land acknowledgements honestly just sound like triumphalism.
I’d love democrats to focus on genocide. Just not one that happened a century ago. And a land acknowledgment doesn’t fix anything g.
Yeah, in most of the ones I’ve heard, I just hear “haha, we took your land and we’re not giving it back! Sucks for you!” What’s the point of that? If anything, it’s trivializing genocide, not truly acknowledging the magnitude of what happened. It just makes liberals look like performative virtue signalers, who don’t actually care about doing anything, just talking about how wonderful they are. DEI programs suffer from the same problem. I agree with their goals in theory, but the point isn’t to actually achieve anything, just to make the company look good without having to spend the money or do the hard things it would take to actually make a difference.
And look at the battle between the Cherokee and the Lumbee for federal recognition of the Lumbee as even being a tribe. It’s all corrupt and political, just like everything else.
Yeah someone (who is cis white or maybe cis African-American) would probably see these as pandering to leftist woke identity politics.
But when we’re all mostly on the same page economically- increase lower wages, decrease inflation – what else is there to talk about?
What do they usually open with, not “god bless the USA”
Yes, I read this article. So my view is at worst, they’re wasting time, but honestly, none of this bothers me. It would bother me if this is all that the DNC spent time on, but it isn’t–it’s just what the Right targets and pretends the Left is prioritizing. But it costs very little to be a good human and I’m ok with the Left spending time acknowledging things that need to be acknowledged.
I very much assume they are spending more time figuring out winning policies and messaging. I hope so.
I honestly think whenever they figure out winning policies and messaging, they must get a call from donors telling them to knock it off. My guess is that they’re taking the same strategy the Clinton campaign took in the leaked emails: hoping the bad guys will be so bad that the Democrats can look good in comparison without doing a darn thing. Maybe it will even give them some more room to get away with some badness of their own.
That’s the problem – they’re not. They won’t acknowledge it was a mistake to nominate Biden, for starters.
100% They should have ousted him sooner and had primaries. It was no secret he was out of it.
It cost us the election. That seems like a pretty high price to me
I’m really not convinced that it did. People who wanted to vote for right leaning policies but keep their “good people” credentials were just glad to have such an easy scapegoat.
I agree.
+1 million
I am so over the backstabbing analyses of why we don’t have President Harris now. There are so many reasons, and it’s fruitless to keep looking back when we are in a crisis right tf now. The way we win future elections is by fighting what’s happening now and showing non-voters that their voices matter. It’s not about flipping the votes of the privileged few who claim that supporting the rights of trans people is a bridge too far.
Completely agree with your last sentence. Less in agreement with your second sentence. Looking backwards isn’t a thing we should spend too much time on, but it’s important. What happened, what could have been done differently, would it have mattered, how does that impact our next move–all that theoretically is important.
The privileged few – you mean the 70-80% of Dem-leaning voters who support women’s sports for women only? Face it, that issue is decided. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
The issue is decided, yes, but let’s not pretend that anyone cared about the sanctity of women’s sports before. I won’t even begin to pretend that I agree with “women’s sports for women only” but it’s not the hill I’m prepared to die on.
I really don’t think that’s true. Sure, support for certain professional sports like the WNBA has been low, but many (most?) voters have daughters/nieces/sisters/etc in sports. They also prioritize certain values in sports, regardless of sex – fairness, excellence, the idea that hard work pays off, and more. When all of those are violated, it offends voters.
I’m pretty liberal, but I don’t know that this is true. I live in an area, at least, that loves and supports women’s sports. I actually think there is a legitimate argument to have about the fairness of allowing AMAB individuals to compete on women’s sports teams. I wish it weren’t true, and that trans individuals could fairly compete on the sports team of their choice, but it really isn’t fair to the biologically female athletes.
I never cared about women’s sports for women only until I started hearing about people born with p*n*s in their sports. I am liberal and support the protection of transpeople in vulernable places like prisons. If we allow people born as biological men to play women’s sports, then we just do away with title IX.
+1, we need to be guided by science, not dogma in supporting women’s sports.
You are proof that the republican strategy worked. These were not major points of the democratic platform, they were Fox News talking points.
Do the voices of non-voters matter to the DNC though?
Actually I think they should – Democrats won politically engaged and highly educated voters, even if a lot of those folks aren’t happy with the Democratic party. They lost less politically engaged voters, including people who didn’t vote in the last election, and people who made up their mind at the last minute. The block of people who vote isn’t static from year to year – and there’s probably even more swing available here than “persuadable swing voters” (people who vote every election but for different parties) Democrats need to figure out how to get their messaging to these folks too, and it’s not gonna be CNN prime time interviews. I live in a state with a large Hispanic population, and know a lot of Latino Trump voters (mostly blue collar, young, second generation, men) who heard Trump was only going to deport criminals and also not tax overtime pay, and are genuinely surprised to find out he considers their moms, aunts, uncles, cousin – who have been living & working here 20 years as “criminals”. And their takehome pay hasn’t increased. Democrats failed to figure out how to communicate with those guys.
The Democrats did get their message out. People didn’t like it. For a variety of reasons, people didn’t see what the Democrats were going to do for them, the people they are supposed to represent. The Democrats and the media also lied to us, for years. Biden was not OK, and if they didn’t know it, they should have.
The Democratic Party needs to grapple with the fact that people don’t want what they are selling. They can blame misogyny, racism, stupidity, poor communication, whatever but they need to assign blame where it belongs, which is to themselves. They lost. They will continue to lose as long as they run on what they think people should want, and because they are better than the horrible alternative.
I voted for Harris because I lathe Trump, but I would have voted for a reasonable Republican over her or Biden.
So silly. The Rs have this bizarre idea that DEI takes time. Don’t feed it.
This entire thread could be a case study in why Democrats lost. Without some serious self reflection, I think we’ll be on the losing end of the next midterms as well. If you can’t see land acknowledgments as a problem, the dems will never win again. They’re nothing but far left “wokeness” that is driving anyone moderate away. Start focusing on real issues. I’m so disappointed in what we’ve become.
+1
Bravo! Instead the Trump
Voters as a whole group are vilified as ignorant and racist. Without any attempt to understand why they voted the way they did.
I hear this a lot from people I know. At the end of the day we had an understanding of what would happen, it’s happening, and I really don’t care to understand the why for each individual person. We all knew the outcomes (we were told!) and now we’re living it.
I’m OP and I don’t even think land acknowledgments are that big a deal personally – I think they’re performative but not likely to be that impactful. I can see why some consider them important. The problem is that promoting them is not AS important as safeguarding our democracy, winning elections against wannabe autocrats, and generally listening to the will of the voters. Democrats have completely lost the plot on how to prioritize.
But seriously, why are land acknowledgements a problem? They take 15 seconds and are a history lesson. There were people here before us and their experience at the hands of a bigger government should not be forgotten, and we should move forward understanding those who came before us. That’s all this is. This is not why we lost. A lack of charisma in our candidates is why we lost. Lack of showmanship is why we lost.
Honestly people are weak in their convictions if they can’t fit in “being decent” with a “winning platform.” Your message lost? Strengthen it, don’t abandon the most vulnerable portions and people within it. The democratic party stands for certain values. If those don’t resonate–why? If you throw them away to appeal to republicans, you aren’t the democratic party anymore. Fine, but own that.
There are alot of things that are non issues in other developed democracies (abortions, climate concerns, welfare etc) that’s extremely loaded topics in the US. Do you not live here?
Not the anon above but millennial age Canadians who grew up at the start of free trade and the proliferation of US cable television had a lot of exposure to American culture and emphasis on things being very similar in both countries so it’s still surprising when things that we think of as ordinary are a big deal. It’s clear now that the cultural gulf has widened in the last couple decades but most of us didn’t grow up thinking of the USA as so different.
Ok? We still care about these issues.
Land acknowledgements and demands for pronouns are a problem because they are really tests of ideological fealty. I don’t like the Pledge of Allegiance either because of its McCarthyist associations.
oh my god. the entire DNC is Mandy Moore crying about losing her pool house in a wildfire. y’all deserve to lose.
And then starting a go fund me for it.
I am now dividing the world into “will spend 100% of allotted time on definitions” and “will have time left over for significant other things.”
Gift link: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/dnc-meeting/681548/?gift=2fPCdg33v1qf-3OHJzgHeuQn4JiHJGeg5cILZVi9nys&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
:) Thank you.
I’ve boycotted all companies that are aligned with Trump or stopped their DEI programs. I spend about an hour each day calling and emailing my senators snd congressman.
Things get worse and worse by the day. None of my actions are having any impact.
What else can I do? I can’t just sit idly by.
I do get frustrated with the commenters who are like “just call your representative!” We are SO past that point. Right now, all I’m aiming for is awareness and transparency – Trump thrives on people not knowing precisely what he’s doing and on the “flood the court” approach to ramming through illegal initiatives. The more knowledgeable people can observe and report back (in plain language) to their family and friends, the more eyes we can get on him. Journalism and legal challenges will also be essential, even with Trump’s efforts to gut/sway the courts.
Whatever you think would be useful, it is NOT the time to minimize. Take any action you can.
On that note, pay for more newspaper/magazine subscriptions. Show journalists you support their efforts and give them funds to do their work
Who?
All my current subscriptions, save my local paper, are actually on my “should not support” list
I’m not sure your reasons for not supporting them, but any national paper that covers politics and can help bring these atrocities to light. The National Parks resistance group is pleading for (and getting) attention from these outlets, so IMO the exposure they can provide is worth overlooking certain past affronts.
On that note, subscribe to newspapers and long-form magazines. Show journalists you support their efforts and give them funds to do their work
We are not past the point of calling your representatives being a good idea.
Let’s be real, it can be pointless af. My best friend lives in a deep red state and you think that her calling her rabid, unhinged NRA-superfan rep to say “we should raise the minimum wage” actually does anything? Those guys would die for Trump. They don’t care what she thinks.
People always say that a certain type of middle class white Republican calls their representatives more than anyone else, but I really wonder if they feel more motivated because they’re heard more and are centered in so many contexts. It feels like a vicious cycle.
even in the face of overwhelming majorities or people unlikely to change their mind, I think the plain act of dissent does matter. On a historical scale it matters, even if it’s not able to reverse course in the moment.
My senator was literally quoted as saying “call someone who cares” re constituents who oppose Musk’s takeover of the government. Disgusting. It really does feel futile to contact him.
I wrote to my Senators in NC (and checked the box that I wanted a response). Senator Thom Tillis gave me a response stating, “ there are unfortunately employees who either do not meet the high standards we should expect from our federal government or simply abuse their roles. Poor performance by these individuals places an undue burden on their fellow federal employees who have to work harder, and also causes significant waste of taxpayer dollars.”
Senator Ted Budd didn’t respond.
I’ll add that you can focus on your local representatives (township level and state level). There’s lots going on at the level of towns and states that goes under the radar because of national bloviating. Calling local reps actually can make a difference, insofar as they have fewer people they represent and your voice is louder.
And “make a difference” is a long game. Maybe you call about a bill and it still passes. But you keep calling, because you want to make sure that your rep understands, over time, that X is an issue they need to take seriously. That accumulates, but again, over time.
Finally, I’d say focus on an issue or two. You can always call/write about what’s going on in the moment, and that’s not a bad thing. But if you focus on, say, pushing back against curricular narrowing in the name of anti-woke bs, then you have a purposeful way to focus that can help with the dizzying anxiety that “it’s all terrible.”
That’s not sitting idly by. Part of the reason for the overwhelming amount of stuff is so that people tune out. Staying engaged is great.
I don’t know what there is to do as an individual other than to let your elected officials know how you want them to vote and to “walk the walk” in life, letting friends and family and colleagues know your values and how you think that carries into big issues of the day.
I am also trying to choose more thoughtfully where I spend my money, but I will say that I do not care about the existence of a DEI program, only about whether a company is discriminating. I don’t think it is as simple as DEI = good in all respects.
I don’t think having a DEI program automatically means you’re good (I’ve worked places that have one and they’re useless) and not having one automatically means you’re bad.
I do think any company that removed its DEI program or statement since the election is bending the knee to Trump and I will absolutely not support that company.
I also won’t support the tech bros and their companies that were front and center at the inauguration.
Agree, OP. Most DEI programs I’ve participated in have been worse than useless (I swear one at my current workplace made white people more racist), but companies getting rid of them on Trump’s command really tells you something about the company.
+1
Other actions you can take: become involved in your community, even (or maybe especially) if it isn’t directly advocating a political stance. Be kind to a stranger. Pick up someone else’s garbage and instead of grumbling about the person who left the trash behind think of it as contributing to the beauty around you.
Do you have a list of the companies? I canceled my target CC and have been avoiding Amazon for years and some others, but would love to see your list. Most of my friends are very liberal but not liberal enough to avoid Amazon and target.
Basically, I dropped Amazon (including Whole Foods), Walmart, and Target. Over 90% of what I bought (groceries, toiletries, clothing, household items, makeup, gifts, etc.) came from Amazon and Walmart, and my ad hoc grocery shopping was at Whole Foods. Moved my grocery purchases to Costco + the local Acme (which is so expensive ugh). Also using Costco for as many toiletries and household items as I can.
Haven’t bought clothing or makeup yet, but will continue supporting: TJ Maxx brands, Old Navy brands, thrifting, Ulta, and e.l.f. The little clothing I didn’t get from the aforementioned boycotted companies or thrifting was usually from TJ Maxx or Old Navy, so I’m good there. Most of my skincare and makeup is e.l.f., so I’m buying it from Ulta or directly from e.l.f. instead of from the boycotted big box stores.
Other brands that I’ve seen as being committed to DEI include: Meijer (not in my area), Kroger (not in my area), Giant, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Dollar Tree, Wegmans, and Walgreens. Unfortunately, the Macy’s and Walgreens near me just closed. I can go out of my way to get to a Giant, Nordstrom, Dollar Tree, Wegmans and another Walgreens location, so will do that.
Switching my crafting supplies purchases from big box stores to local stores (so expensive) and Michael’s. Not sure what to do for sporting equipment yet. I think I may need to occasionally still shop from one of the big box stores or Amazon, because there are a few really niche things I don’t think I can get elsewhere.
Other companies to boycott: Sephora, McDonald’s, Meta, Lowe’s, Tractor Supply, Chick Fil A.
Why Lowe’s. They were “good” on the last list I saw. Home Depot bad.
Hm, I saw them as “bad” on a few lists. TBH that’s not an industry I follow closely – I rent an apartment and don’t have a yard so I never go to a home improvement store. Someone may be following that sector better than I am and can chime in!
Look, if we’re expecting companies to have morals, every single one of them is going to be bad.
Are Lowe’s grocery and Lowe’s home improvement entirely unrelated chains?
lowes cut back their dei program in 2024. also anecdotally, my partner worked for their corporate office briefly and mgmt was shockingly racist and misogynistic. So I’m comfortable putting them in the ‘bad’ list.
https://apnews.com/article/lowes-dei-robby-starbuck-conservative-522fef16cf0dc77450524542d21016ef
Re: Anon at 9:52 I generally agree about companies and morals, but if you’re looking for a few better than average ones to support, Penzey’s is very anti-Trump and makes great spices, King Arthur Baking is a B Lab-certified benefit corporation with fantastic flour and other baking supplies, and Patagonia has also been anti-Trump and pro-environment, and while they’re expensive, their clothes last way longer than any other clothes I own.
@9:55, yes, Lowe’s Foods and Lowe’s home improvement are unrelated companies. The families that founded each are related, though.
I heard that the “Sephora donated to Trump” thing was a false rumor. Anyone have any more info?
I live in NYC so thankfully none of the others are super relevant to me, thankfully! But I appreciate the list.
On craft supplies — one of my New Year’s resolutions is to finish up all my half finished projects and not buy supplies except if absolutely necessary to finish something. I’ve dug deep into the piles and am having a lot of fun picking up old friends! I’m also not shy about frogging anything I absolutely hate/wont finish.
Kroger is a union busting company. That is far, far more serious than some DEI nonsense in their web site.
yeah kroger is terrible — check out “more perfect union” for more coverage of this, it’s quite extensive. I would also put Dollar Tree on your “bad” list (for ruining local businesses and communities and ultimately driving up prices in impoverished areas).
I would rather people focus on not discriminating against mothers and families and people with disabilities and stop making me state my pronouns on every drop-down menu and form.
On the pronouns, they’ve asked if you were a Mr, Miss, or Mrs from the dawn of time, so what’s the difference really.
That’s title / honorific, no? I think we all know what is meant here.
Well, it’s also gendered, in “Miss” vs. “Mrs.” “Ms.” was added many decades ago, when people started thinking about the ways language and identity interact.
And stating pronouns on drop-down menus doesn’t obviate caring about families and disability rights. I think you’re saying that it feels like one is the substitute for the other, but you’re comparing apples and oranges here.
DEI is run by the worst folks at my work, and are very much not safe people. Only one of my colleagues is out at work, the rest of us have gay lunch club because we’ve sussed eachother out. I wish there was a way to make structural change.
DEI is the most toxic ideology to hit corporate America in my lifetime. And I’m a democrat. See also, how we continue to lose.
Please elaborate on this
+1
There’s plenty out there. Do the work. To quote your own beloved programs.
I’ve seen a lot of “prepper” (specifically prepper for women) content and maybe look in that direction. Home garden, learn how to work with herbs and other medicinal plants. Learn how to hunt (? maybe?), how to sew, basic repairs.
These are things I learned living on a religious commune in my childhood but I picked some back up in the ‘demic–specifically working out and meditation to be in the best physical and mental shape.
It sounds a bit…doomy but it really helps and feels much more like you’re doing a quiet act of resistance by becoming more self-reliant.
I do like the “Victory gardens” that people started doing.
I am doing a low buy and am using the saved dollars to fund publications doing investigative journalism, and a legal defense fund. It’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but I figure a lot of small efforts like mine will help. I had already moved my purchases off Amazon years ago, and will continue to pick the least evil alternative I can find
Love this!
Donate to legal funds. Go to State protests. Recognize that mamby pamby Dems are fine with blockchain and neoliberal policies. Pray. Be nice to other people. Get a go bag ready. That’s all I got.
+1
Yes this is the way.
Donate to the ACLU. Support the legal process as it my be our last chance.
Subscribe your local newspaper and NYT or NPR or something that does good reporting in depth. We have to help them or they wont be able to keep us informed.
Continue to call. OP you are doing better than 99% of us! Most people are lazy or in denial, as you know.
Get involved now at the local level. Join the League of Women’s Voters to know what is happening in your local community. They will keep you updated on the issues, actions to take, and how to prepare for the Midterms. And you will register people to vote.
The energy/anxiety caused by your extreme boycotting focus could be used in more effective ways.
March when you have the opportunity.
I’m just glad that my father, who marched with Martin Luther King and Students for a Democratic Society, is not alive to see this. But he did warn me years ago when he saw the trends…
There was some discussion yesterday about the state of California dumbing down academic standards in the name of equity (which is so offensive…I can’t even). Does anyone have any good resources for learning more about that? I’m vaguely aware that there was some study that showed that dumbing down the math curriculum actually worsened the black-white achievement gap on standardized math testing, but I’d like to get more informed now that I have a kid here.
In my state, the canary in the coal mine if if a school doesn’t teach Algebra 1 by 8th grade. The way high school course progression works here, that keeps kids out of AP Calculus AB and definitely BC in high school, which gate keeps for the best colleges and STEm degrees at other colleges.
+1 this is a good litmus test. Bright kids should have the option to take high school algebra in 8th and AP Calculus by senior year. It’s a huge red flag if they don’t.
Ideally they should have the option to accelerate one year further, either taking algebra in 7th or skipping a high school math course. In our Midwestern public high school the most rigorous path is honors algebra in 8th, honors geometry in 9th, honors algebra II in 10th and AP Calculus BC in 11th, so then they can take college math senior year. The honors algebra II is basically a precalc course, much more rigorous than regular algebra II taken by 11th and 12th graders.
NC has IMO dumb names for math (Math 1, Math 2, Math 3). The better kids take Math 1 in 8th grade and the top 5% of kids get to take it and Math 2 then also. But yes — the Math 2 kids are definitely going somewhere, as. Are the Math 1 kids. It gets hard to have a school where kids are struggling with the basics to offer a Math 1 class for the 5 kids who could do it or the 1 kid who could do Math 2. So poor kids tend to go to magnets to get needed classes (which helps them but could worsen the problem overall) vs a suburban school that can easily fill a Math 1 class and justify the headcount.
Regular algebra II is taken by 11th and 12th graders?
Where I am the normal track is 8th – Algebra I, 9th – Algebra II, 10th – geometry (It’s pretty 50/50 if schools in this area do back to back algebra I, algebra II, geometry OR algebra 1, geometry, algebra II), 11th – pre-calc, 12th – calc.
Of course, there are several tracks above and below that (my kids’ school graduates a class of ~130 and I think there are like 8 different tracks/options depending on needs and interests. Some kids are taking Honors Algebra II in 8th and college math or an independent study in 11th or 12th grade, having already taken AP BC calc, other kids take Algebra II in 11th and basically “math for non-math people” in 12th. Some opt out of pre-calc to take trig or stats).
The “standard” high school math track in the US is Algebra I in 9th, Geometry in 10th and Algebra II in 11th and either pre-calc or some generic “math for non-math people” course in 12th or possibly even no math, depending on college plans.
Algebra I in 8th (to take AP Calculus senior year) is accelerated, but common for college-bound kids especially those shooting for Ivies or four year colleges in STEM fields.
+1 to if you’re not accelerated, you are in fact behind. Behind by this board’s standards, at any rate. Otherwise, kids are not really going to be able to be a lot of what it is possible to be and they / their families will be the last to know this.
So California is kneecapping kids, then, if algebra 1 isn’t introduced until 9th?
Yes. 1000%.
And this focuses on the highest achievers. Many / most are far behind this. Sort of moving the goalposts easier to avoid highlighting how bad it is because the top cohort no longer exists. It just disappeared.
Exactly this. It’s infuriating. I like the ideals of democrats, hate what’s going on, but absolutely understand the desire for something different living in CA. Academic ideas do not make good policy.
They push ideology above all else. It is broken.
Yup. And a lot of CA public schools say that Algebra 1 in eighth is “accelerated,” even though it’s standard in a lot of places. It takes a lot of bright kids out of the running for selective colleges if they don’t get to Calculus in high school.
How are UC admissions responding?
Eh, you do not *need* any calculus at all in high school. Sure it’s great to have, but in my experience my classmates and colleagues who didn’t take calc until college are still successful PEs. It does not prevent you from having a STEM career. And you definitely do not need to take BC calc in high school to get admitted to top universities.
I wouldn’t bank on that at all. Aim high and you’ll be fine if you fall a bit short. Aiming low on purpose is not a great way to go about life.
It actually is really hard to get into elite colleges now without Calculus. And even at the State U I work at which is very much NOT Harvard, you won’t be admitted to a STEM major without it, unless you have very unusual circumstances or are an incredibly distinguished candidate in other ways. There are so many kids who have Calculus in high school that it’s pretty much expected for anyone who wants to do anything STEM at any halfway decent four year college. Some lucky people make it work but it’s not a path I’d recommend for anyone serious about STEM and high schools are definitely hurting kids by not offering it.
I am in the middle of college apps (well, decisions) for the third time and you absolutely do need calculus to be competitive at many schools, particularly in STEM.
I’m not sure when you were applying, but calculus was considered a must-have at my kinda prestigious engineering program 15 years ago. You could still get in without it, especially if you came from a school that didn’t offer it, but they didn’t teach it – you were expected to self teach or take it at a community college if needed
I work at an engineering-heavy state school that’s good but not great (like, one tier down from University of Michigan). We teach intro calculus but it’s considered remedial and something like 80% of our engineering admits have it. It’s definitely an uphill battle to admission here if you want to study engineering and don’t have calculus.
Maybe I’m missing something but even well regarded schools like MIT, CMU, etc all offer basic calc… right? Are there schools that no longer offer calculus courses?
MIT technically offers single variable calculus but they do all of AP Calculus BC (a year long course in high school) in one semester so it would be really hard to keep up with if you haven’t had some exposure to calculus or very rigorous pre-Calc. I went to MIT and everyone I knew who took this class (18.01) had taken Calculus AB in high school, or had taken Calculus BC but not done well on the AP exam. You need a 5 on the Calculus BC exam to test out of this class/get credit for it.
The second semester calculus at MIT is multi-variable, which is the third semester of calculus at many other schools.
MITs own admission guidance describes a “prepared” student as having “at least some exposure” to calculus in high school; and their guidance for students whose high school’s don’t have calculus is stuff like: ask your high school to let you dual enroll in a community college; take an online course; etc. You can work around it but MIT absolutely expects you to have at least calc AB.
https://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/foundations/#:~:text=That%20is%20why%20all%20of,humanities%2C%20arts%2C%20and%20social%20sciences
For engineering programs, something equivalent to AP physics is also usually an assumption — my high school didn’t offer and the overwhelmed counselor told me AP Chem was just as good, and I was 100% behind as a first year engineering student. I caught up, but the physics classes offered did expect I had more background coming in. I also benefited from coming in with more math already than most; so I could spend more time on catching up in physics. And honestly the examples used in math classes are going to require you to learn some physics along the way too
This is an outdated and terrible take.
Coming to college ready, with good fundamentals, for College Algebra sets a kid up for success a lot better than getting through Calc in high school with no real idea how they got there. Landing in higher math courses with a shaky foundation is how students crash and burn when they reach actual hard courses.
Slowing their roll and emphasizing mastery of fundamentals isn’t the worst idea in the world.
The thing is that the lower level high school math courses (at least at good high schools) are mostly aimed at kids who aren’t bound for four year colleges. So they don’t really teach fundamentals well. They teach to the lowest common denominator who just want to get a passing grade and move on.
At the very least if you want any kind of STEM career you need a solid trig and precalc background in high school to prepare you for calculus freshman year of college. College Algebra is remedial and many colleges don’t even offer it anymore because there’s no demand for it (non-STEM types don’t take math in college and STEM majors have to take calculus freshman year).
I seriously doubt that California is improving math instruction while it’s slowing it down. For most kids we need to be speeding up the pace, not slowing it down, and improving the depth and quality.
If a kid isn’t capable of truly understanding and mastering first-semester calculus in high school, I would argue that they aren’t ready for the level of thinking required in any collegiate course of study.
Agreed. IDK how you can enter a trade without good math sense. It’s one thing to just install and finish drywall or do hair and another to deal with ordering supplies, scheduling workers, dealing with taxes and withholdings and garnishment. Pricing a bid. Expanding to a second location. And that’s not calculus but just basic math applied IRL. How do loans work? Should we buy or lease a warehouse?
College Algebra is not the same thing as remedial algebra, and is the traditional start of the STEM college math sequence. Nowadays, a student may have to take summer classes to get through their program timely if they’re in a credit heavy STEM major, but it’s by no means remedial.
My dad is from the country where he went to a tiny high school that did what it could. I just found his conditional admission to Flagship State U for engineering where he had to take some classes to bulk up his math bonafides enough to be in the engineering program. So while this is “remedial” for an otherwise very good student, I suspect that even now the top applicants are better prepared and from bigger / city schools that can offer more high-end offerings and the “remedial” classes are for top kids from other backgrounds who aren’t needing to fix failure but to fix never having had the chance to learn before. Even in 2025.
Dumbed-down programs don’t emphasize mastery of fundamentals, though. The slower and more basic the program, the less likely it is to do anything beyond teaching kids to solve problems by rote without actually understanding what they are doing or why.
Slowing the pace is absolutely disastrous for smart kids. I hated math until I hit calculus junior year because it was so slow and boring and pointless. Calc was the first math course that was actually interesting because it moved at a reasonable pace and the teacher derived all the formulas. Unfortunately, by that time bad science and math instruction in high school had put me off of STEM entirely. I didn’t come back to quantitative coursework until grad school. I probably would have been much better off and much happier majoring in economics or engineering in the first place.
College algebra is absolutely considered remedial and not offered by many four year colleges, including my very generic State U that is by no means MIT. The lowest level class our math department teaches is intro calculus; you have to go to our local community college for anything lower than that, and you can’t major in engineering if you can’t pass calculus by the end of your freshman year because all the engineering courses require calculus. I understand the argument that you can go into STEM without taking calculus in high school (although I think it’s a risky and unnecessary gamble) but you absolutely have to complete it by your freshman year of college.
My flagship state university still has multiple sections of college algebra, pre calc and trig. These are not remedial courses except perhaps for people raising kids in bougie pressure cooker high schools.
It’s not “bougie” or “pressure cooker” though, and it’s not new. The standard high school math track beginning with algebra in 9th grade culminates in trig and precalc in 12th, and prepares you to take calculus your freshman year of college. You’re behind that standard track if you need to take college algebra, trig or precalc in college.
And high school calculus has long been expected for those bound for fancier colleges or STEM careers. My mom took AP calculus in 12th grade in the 1960s.
And the fact that a university offers a course doesn’t mean it’s not remedial. Most universities have some remedial courses.
Yeah, I would agree that a student coming in to a STEM track with calc on their transcript but a shaky grasp of algebra is going to be in trouble. But the goal isn’t “get a calc transcript stamp” for every student; it should be to actually teach students calculus! And algebra and geometry. And for a motivated, math-inclined high schooler, that’s a totally reasonable goal
Social scientist here. You really do need calculus in high school or you will be behind in the quantitative course sequences.
Not having a path to calculus is a good indicator that academic standards in the district are lax, even if not all students take that path.
Right – its’ not that all college-bound students need calculus (many don’t!) it’s that not having a path for those that need/want it is a huge red flag.
Surely it can prevent you from getting into a STEM major at schools where you are competing with other, better prepared students.
I think that this echoes yesterday’s q about being in the top of a school’s admits if you are to be successful at STEM. If you are among the least-prepared math people at a school, you will probably struggle as a STEM major because your peers are ahead of you and moving at a different speed.
My HS teacher husband, who also has a PhD in civil engineering and used to teach at the college level, feels Algebra in 8th grade is important. He doesn’t believe in acceleration much beyond that, in part because there are developmental limits to the level of abstraction that kids can understand until later in their teens. In our progressive corner of Brooklyn, where increasing diversity in public schools is a priority, they eliminated math tracking in most middle schools and all kids at these schools now take Regents Alegbra I (Regents is a weird NY thing – standardized tests in high school subjects) in 8th grade. Those that don’t do well can take it again in 9th grade, but the goal is for the school to prepare EVERYONE to pass.
Where I live there was a backlash against teaching algebra before 8th grade for that reason. There were complaints that accelerated students were less prepared than their peers one year “behind” them.
I’d be fine if the kids were actually taught by an actual teacher. One of my kids was in a proctored double-sized class in two rooms with one teacher going back and forth between the rooms. So they got a teacher 50% of the time and a proctor making sure they didn’t sneak out (but not teaching) the other 50% of the time. And that’s for a class with a math teacher. Many classes have just “teachers” and not people with any higher level math ability. Once you get beyond solving for X, it’s hard to find teachers because they have better financial options outside of schools.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/california-math-framework-algebra/675509/
It’s the soft bigotry of low expectations. Those poor kids are too dumb to learn calculus, so let’s not even let them try! And let’s hold back all the other kids in an attempt to even the playing field!
I have tutored countless kids of various ages in math. Most halfway intelligent kids are capable of understanding at least calculus AB in twelfth grade IF they are taught math properly beginning in elementary school, which includes deriving all properties and algorithms and making sure they are solid on algebra and trig fundamentals. Calculus itself is actually quite simple to understand; it’s the manipulation of trigonometric and logarithmic expressions that trips kids up.
The idea of teaching kids “data science” in place of calculus is frightening. You can’t actually understand statistics and more advanced quantitative methods without understanding calculus. We are teaching an entire generation to plug and chug, which is downright dangerous.
Which is why I find it incredibly ironic that Democrats of many shades accuse the right of aiming to dumb down education to make them rank and file soldiers to vote accordingly. Dems own policies (not to mention regulatory burden, administrative bloat and mismanagement) are dumbing down their kids plenty in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion.
I think both sides are guilty of trying to dumb down public education for different reasons.
Both of these comments, exactly.
If you look at who actually runs cities and congress, none of these people is sending their kids to schools like this. In my city and every other place I’ve lived (all very solid D places), their kids are at Country Day / equivalents where they are doing real math and that is a feature and a selling point.
Yep, same with all the dems who buy houses in the whitest towns and/or send their kids to private schools.
If you want to talk about supporting all kids and investing in education, do your part!! Funding is in large part pegged to how many kids go to those public schools, and wealthy/involved parents are needed to raise the tide for all boats.
But it’s easier to say Other People are decimating the public ed system…
California’s public schools aren’t failing due to a lack of funding—they receive an abundance of it. Take Oakland Unified School District as an example: they spend approximately $28,000 per student, well above the national and state average. Yet, student outcomes remain dismal.
The real issue isn’t underfunding but mismanagement, administrative bloat, and a focus on equity-driven policies rather than academic achievement. Bureaucratic inefficiencies and regulatory burdens siphon resources away from classrooms, teachers, and students. Wash and repeat across school districts statewide. Until accountability and measurable results—not ideology—become the priority, simply throwing more money at the problem won’t fix it.
This is exactly why I support shuttering the Department of Education. With its vast resources and progressive ideology, California should be a leader in academic excellence. Instead, it’s failing our kids miserably. Top-down regulation and ideological agendas do not create success. More money does not create success. What does? Local control, parental involvement, and a focus on core academics over bureaucracy.
Decisions should be made at the local level, where parents, teachers, and communities can tailor education to the needs of their students—not dictated by bureaucrats in Washington. The further removed decision-making is from the classroom, the worse the outcomes.
Last night, someone noted California’s growth. Florida has experienced comparable growth, yet their schools consistently rank among the top 10.
But not their own kids! Their own kids are brilliant and need special things! The school board members in my district who are the biggest proponents of dumbing down everything have their own kids in the super-accelerated tracks that aren’t offered in an equitable manner (e.g., advanced math you have to get driven to every day before school). OR they send their kids to private school because their kids need more academic challenges.
I wish that Democrats would be more critical of their own candidates on this kind of thing. Sorry, if you send our own kids to Elite Country Day and want to screw the rest of the kids by claiming that teaching calculus is racist, I’d rather vote for someone else.
+1
So what are families with bright kids who can’t afford private doing?
In the case of my kid, getting screwed over.
Leaving California. I know multiple families that left the state over this.
You can also probably push a school to skip you a grade (either overall or just in math)and then take college math at a local university.
i’m not from california but families who care this much could make arrangements. i know a few kids who (On their own or because their parents wanted it) made up an extra year of math over the summer before or after ninth grade so they could be in the advanced cycle. certainly an able math kid could arrange to take an advanced math class out of school? yes this involves money and wherewithal but then so does moving.
Ha — our community college now won’t let you take classes there if you are <18. It's dual enrollment or nothing (or just pay for a tutor). Dual enrollment is not really a path to a good college, more like a ticket to workforce programs for kids bypassing a 4-year school on purpose.
My parents did this for me – let me take summer school math classes through a local program that condensed a high school semester into about a month. It was a whole family sacrifice, involved a lot of early morning driving, and cost a couple hundred dollars – which I realize now was probably subsidized but was a big deal. It was also transformational to me – the accelerated pace was the first time I’d been in a class and NOT been bored, and it gave me that hope and example that it was possible to get to a college where all my classes would be like that, and it gave me the kind of transcript I needed to get into that kind of college, with a full scholarship. I’m deeply grateful my parents were able to do that for me; but I want to see all kids have that opportunity in public schools – it shouldn’t only be available to kids with family support and a family with the resources to make it happen.
California public school parent here. A few notes: Math tracking varies by district. In our district, they eliminated seventh grade algebra maybe 8 years ago. But they’ve just introduced a new curriculum which offers two opportunities to accelerate – one in eighth grade, and another in high school. If you maximize these opportunities you can take two years of calculus in high school. You can also take classes outside school – for example, through UC Scout – in order to accelerate. So there are options.
I wish we had that kind of thing. Our school district works VERY hard to make sure that math acceleration is extremely limited, because equity only flows to the kids who score the lowest on tests, not kids who could take on academic challenges.
I am trying very hard to remember that part of the Trump playbook is distracting people with shiny things, so they get outraged about those, meanwhile Trump can implement the really bad stuff under the radar.
I am baffled by his Gaza proposal. It’s such lunacy, and it’s so criminal — but since it clearly would benefit Trump’s family interests, maybe he is serious? Or maybe it is supposed to distract from Musk’s activities?
I am so tired.
I think you’re giving him too much credit. He’s a genuine idiot and says whatever pops into his head. Turning Gaza into the Mediterranean Riviera is just him taking something Jared said a couple years ago and thinking with his developer brain and thinking that the United States is just a giant contractor at his command. Trump’s advisors are conniving and evil, but, since this hare-brained scheme lacks any foundation in reality, I think this insanity was just him pulling ideas out of thin air.
He’s not a genuine idiot, and that line of thinking by his opponents is why he won.
Think of the Greenland thing. Everyone treated it as a joke in 2019; it turns out that it’s actually strategically important (for similar reasons that Alaska is), and some of our longstanding opponents would love to get their hands on it.
Trump’s brain doesn’t work the way that apple-polishing students’ brains work, but that doesn’t mean he’s dumb. He’s not an apple polisher.
+1. It’s a huge mistake to write him off as an idiotic clown. He’s ugly as sin and devoid of morals, but what he’s doing “intellectually” is working.
Greenland is strategically important militarily and economically important in terms of future shipping lanes.
Going hard on Greenland and threatening to withdraw from Ukraine support also has the added benefit from Trump of keeping the EU occupied and less likely to make too much fuss re Gaza plan.
the thing that baffles me is that Greenland is strategically important in large part due to climate change… which you simultaneously have the R establishment denying, and Hesgeth saying the military will spend no time and money preparing for. (That’s just malarkey, the military has been preparing for climate change since before it was in vogue, because it’s literally a strategic / national security risk, and will continue to do so for the same reason.) The cognitive dissonance is incredible.
If he’s not an idiot, he shouldn’t be undermining public health promoting antivaxxers. And we know what he did to NOT halt the spread of covid. Since he’s not an idiot, I guess he’s genuinely evil.
Both.
Distract from Musk and he’s serious.
If you noticed, the Saudi statement supported at Palestinian state but did not say ‘including Gaza’ which would be relevant given that he wants to take over Gaza. A Palestinian state could be just the West Bank under the Saudi’s press release.
And the Saudi release objected to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. It did not say ‘any occupation of Gaza’ or ‘third party Occupation of Gaza. Trump’s proposal is not for an ‘Israeli occupation of Gaza’, he is proposing an American occupation. Which the Saudis did not specifically denounce. They also called for a state based on the land prior to 1967 but not conditional upon exactly that land. And they didn’t use the word Gaza at all.
I think Trump convinced the Saudis that USA Gaza will be like Dubai but Saudis will make money. Saudis can’t create a Dubai without changing domestic laws which is unappealing to them for domestic politically reasons. I will be 0% shocked if it happens and Saudis get a LOT of the construction contracts.
He will use US AID $$ from shuttered programs to build infrastructure but hotels etc will be privately owned.
It honestly sounds like the kind of thing you say when you lose a bet at the bar – yes, this is serious but there’s something to be said for maintaining a sense of absurdity. Presumably “America owns Gaza” is /none/ of the players desired outcome, so who knows, maybe the US gets obnoxious enough to unite Palestinians and Israelis in opposition
The far right in Israel has wanted this for a long time.
Wasn’t Netanyahu standing right next to him when he said it?
No
Confused by the ‘no’. Netanyahu was literally standing next to him at the press conference.
Anonymous 9:36, here is a summary of the NPR report I heard yesterday.
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/04/nx-s1-5287012/trump-netanyahu-ceasefire-gaza
He was, but he did not endorse it (or denounce it).
It’s nonsense with support from nobody. Not worth paying attention too. Focus on the stuff that might actually happen.
I don’t work in aid or reconstruction, but my understanding is that Gaza has no water or electricity and lot of unexploded ordinance. How can people possibly go back there (never mind under which government)?
People are there currently because they have not been allowed to leave. They have just moved around depending on what area Israel was bombing that the time.
The way the US will get them to ‘voluntarily’ leave and thus claim they didn’t force people out is by supporting Israel (and requiring Egypt) to delay the restoration of services/removal of ordnances.
Given this, it doesn’t sound crazy but more Marshall plan adjacent.
His plan is working. Gaza is top of all the headlines and Musk’s latest attempts to ax NOAA and DOL are below the fold.
Don’t most people living in Gaza want to leave? No country will take them in. Is Trump suggesting the US relocate them here while at the same time deporting all other immigrants? It makes no sense.
People living in Gaza don’t want to leave. They want Israel to stop bombing them and other countries to help them rebuild.
Trump’s plan involves resettlement in Egypt and Jordan. Not the US.
i don’t know that it is fair to say that most people in Gaza want to leave. Many people probably just want to live in peace. I was reading that no one will take in the prisoners that were released as part of the hostage deal. I also don’t really understand why other local countries won’t accept any Palestinian refugees.
For the same reason Americans don’t want to take in large number of refugees? They need support that costs money, they need housing, they need spots in schools and they’re worried about an influx of young men with guns who need training and reintegration services. Politically, Palestinian refugees where also in the coup in Jordan and that makes a lot of neighboring countries nervous.
are neighboring countries taking in any refugees at all? until a couple of weeks ago, while far far far from perfect, America at least took in some refugees?
i also think there is a difference between taking in civilian refugees vs. some of the prisoners released were convicted of serious crimes. I guess I don’t really understand what Hamas’ plan was with the released prisoners. Not that I want more people joining a terrorist organization, but…
Small quantities but yes, Egypt has taken some Palestinian refugees – mostly medical evacuations, as have regional Arab countries that don’t physically border Gaza.
(I assume you’re asking about Gaza specifically; globally /most/ refugees are in a neighboring country)
There was a pretty good article about this in either WaPo or NYT the other day. Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon have their own strains of anti-Israel sentiment, but concentrations of Palestinien refugees increase the risk of extreme/violent factions taking root (no judgement, I might have some extremist ideology if my home had just been razed and a bunch of family and friends killed!)…which invites Israeli strikes/retaliation. This has all happened before.
i wish there was a way to go back in time (obviously there isn’t), or to do some kind of reset. the animosity on both sides towards the other side is understandable. to think of people attending a music festival or people sleeping being r*ped, kidnapped, murdered, held hostage for a year+ does not exactly lead to warm and fuzzy feelings, and neither does razing entire communities.
Love this jacket!
It’s really cute. If I wasn’t against new clothing I’d get it in a heartbeat.
I bought it in another color last year and wear it a lot. Highly recommend
Same. Taking my low-spend year (I hope) a month at a time but in 2024 I would have snapped it up immediately.
Link isn’t working as of 1:30 pm on Wednesday — is this jacket sold out?
What do kids use for college research these days? We had a book as large as the phone book, which is dating me. Still a book? Places like Niche that also do admissions stuff?
instagram, niche, college confidential, us news and world report…. word of mouth, gut, reputation, visits…. my senior and I visited a few schools and then attempted to find other schools like they schools he liked….
reddit
College Confidential.
My generation used Princeton Review.
Is Naviance still a thing? That’s what we had when I was in high school ~ 10 years ago.
I thought that was a student loan platform. Is it both?
No, they’re different, Naviant is the loans, Naviance is college research.
I remember really liking Naviance because it had this anonymized graph of students from your school who had applied to a college (so long as enough students had applied there – to keep it anonymized) with their SATs and GPA and showed if they got in or not – it was really helpful. I was coming from a really rigorous private school, so the college’s average accepted GPA was not helpful at all.
This is super-helpful to know. This is more helpful than the actual guidance people at my kid’s school have been, so thank you, internet stranger.
I should add a caveat that I was at a private school with resources dedicated to college counseling. For a class of 120ish, we had a staff of 6 college counselors. The college counselors were not counselors, that was a separate (smaller) department.
The school paid for Naviance and the data was I guess automatically inputted, I don’t know how it’d work if it wasn’t done through the school
When. my kids were applying I learned that Naviance data was self-reported, so use the scattergraphs cautiously if at all.
niche, college confidential, us news and world report, instagram, word of mouth, gut feel…. good luck!
I think my current freshman looked most at PrepScholar and College Confidential. Her initial list of prospects was heavily influenced by e-mail marketing, but after we visited a bunch of the schools that were e-mailing her most aggressively she decided she didn’t actually like any of them and went in a different direction.
If you have a kid who needs a lot of merit-based aid and/or is just average, check out the book Colleges that Change Lives.
We found useful information in each school’s Common Data Set (available on their websites) as to admission rates, test scores, graduation rates, etc. There is another data compiler if you search for “IPEDS,” but we did not use that. Somewhere, there is a list of each school’s peer institutions, or who they think are their peer institutions. If you find a school you like, you might also like its peer institutions.
The Common Data Set is critical to review for every institution under consideration. It helps by comparing apples to apples, at least in theory. Note that the detailed stats on grades, standardized test scores, etc., relate only to first time, full time admissions for the fall semester. This is a big piece of why grades and standardized test schools can be lower for January admits.
A lot of colleges have subreddits. There’s also an ApplyingToCollege reddit.
College Confidential was my lifeline when I was applying in 2002, so it kind of warms my heart to learn it’s still around.
Does your school have Naviance? It has a ton of information, and does a great job of giving you your realistic chances of getting in, with your particular stats.
anyone use nulastin (its supposed to help you grow your eyebrows back) does it work or is it instagram snake oil? thanks!
Talk to your doctor. If your eyebrows are thin not because you plucked them, you may need endocrine testing. If they’re thin because you plucked them, dermatologists can still advise on serums.
It works although I prefer revitalash.
The otc products with synthetic prostaglandins do work, but beware that they can cause orbital fat loss. It may be permanent.
I use Latisse – I figure nothing can be better than a prescription one.
I found Grande Brow to work better than Nulastin — definitely got results (also with Grande Lash).
Nulastin worked well for me. After getting the results I wanted, though, I cut back from twice a day to once a day (as recommended for maintenance) and lost most of the improvement. It’s very expensive to keep up using it twice a day, and honestly I just can’t be bothered.
I’m going to be in London for barely one day, staying overnight near Paddington station after arriving on a red eye. I’m trying to cram in a few things into my one day, but I know from experience I’m going to be ready to collapse at some point in the late afternoon/early evening.
Does anyone have recommendations for a very casual place I can grab a quick dinner near Paddington when I’m approaching that point, before I go back to the hotel to pass out? Preferably counter service, not burgers and not Indian.
Also, if my flight lands at 7am, what time would you expect to arrive at paddington station — and does it matter much whether you take Elizabeth line or Heathrow express?
TIA!
Just get some orange marmalade
I wish we had a “love” button for comments like this. Made me smile on a day when I needed one.
For a restaurant, there are lots of places around the station so you might just want to wander round and see what takes your fancy. One option is Vapiano, which is a chain serving fresh pasta cooked to order.
Regarding transport, the Elizabeth line is about 15 minutes slower than the Heathrow Express (as there are stops in between) but is half the price. I always take the Elizabeth line as it’s linked up to the usual Transport for London payment system and I can’t be bothered to buy a separate ticket.
Vapiano is available in the US and can be borderline inedible, so I would avoid at all costs.
Agree.
Which terminal at Heathrow? If you’re at terminal 2 or 3 the time difference to Paddington station is 10 minutes in travel time. Both are great, and they leave from the same place, so you don’t have to decide before you see the timetable. For a single journey, Elizabeth line is cheaper, for a return tickets is almost the same. You can tap a chip/pin contactless card on the Elizabeth.
There are some nice places on barges on the water at Paddington basin, but if you just want easy food, either the Leon or Itsu at the station or a salad, sandwich or other ready food from the M&S at the station will be super easy.
Heathrow Express is faster and less annoying than Elizabeth line because there’s only 1 stop.
You’ll probably be at Paddington by 9am – passport control at Heathrow is so much faster than any US city I’ve flown into.
I find most restaurants near Paddington kind of meh, but maybe I’m just overexposed to them.
Time to go up a size in pants. 2025 brands that work for a short size 10 pear? Loving cropped pants because they are just “pants” on me.
Old Navy pixie pants have been great for me.
I also love some I got from BR Factory.
Talbots and NYDJ have petites.
I have some high waisted Athleta and Lululemon leggings that are stretched out around my natural waist and higher. I lost about 20 pounds in that area. The leggings fit everywhere else, but they fall down when I’m walking. It’s a penguin situation when I run! Is it possible for a tailor to fix this? To either insert a drawstring or take in the fabric? They’re high quality and expensive leggings, so I’d pay to fix them.
Sell on ebay or poshmark and get yourself new leggings.
Yeah I think you can use these as winter pajamas or to wear under blue jeans when it’s really cold. It’s not just the elastic waist the whole fabric was stretched to your body that’s why we love them
Save them for your bloated days and buy new leggings to congratulate yourself for your weight loss. Idk about LL but Athleta always has sales. You might have to sale stalk for a while until your item comes on sale though, their most popular items are excluded from most but not all sales.
The nature of leggings is that they stretch out over time. A tailor could take in some fabric but the remaining fabric is still stretched out. It’s not going to stay up very well. I count myself lucky to get 5 years out of even good quality leggings.
A tailor is not for gym clothes, just get new ones.
+1
The stretchier the fabric, the less a tailor can help you.
If they have a waistband that is 2 laters of fabric, you could probably cut a hole in it and insert a drawstring, but I would not pay someone to try it. I would attempt the DIY and then if I hated it I would throw them out, which is what you otherwise need to do. No one wants stretched out, used leggings.
I will be the dissenting voice only because I am a sewer and have tailored $90 athleta tights after losing significant weight. Were I not a sewer, they would be reclassed as under snow pants wear. If you have a relationship with your local tailor it is worth an ask, predicated by low expectations.
Are they actually stretched out, or just too big in the waist because your body size changed there? If actually stretched out, I would not waste money on a tailor but might be inclined to DIY a drawstring or darts just to keep them going until the fabric dies elsewhere.
If in good shape but just too big, I might also try to DIY a drawstring and if I had a really good tailor I might ask what they can do with that particular fabric and construction. I sew and would not try this on my own because flatlock knit seams are a different beast from seams on non-stretch fabric.
Looking for something fun to send to my sister for Valentine’s Day. She is the best aunt to my kids. She is single, likes reading, cats and crafts. I saw that freshcutpaper.com has a cute bundle but wanted to see if anyone has other ideas…
First: I haven’t heard of this website, and it’s very cute.
Second: Does she read physical books or e-books? If the former, depending on your budget, a gift subscription to Book of the Month club?
Thank you for the Fresh Cut Paper rec – it’s perfect for our sitter who is vegan/on a diet and doesn’t have a ton of hobbies but loves cats! I was scratching my head for what to get her before this.
This is completely out there, but I recently learned of the publisher Persephone books in the UK. They republish out of print titles by women. They have a 6 month subscription where either you, recipient, or they can pick the books. It’s pricey but if someone were to get that for me I would be in heaven.
Your sister sounds just like me! What genre of books does she like? Maybe get a brand new hardcover book in her preferred genre (we can help if you know the genre) + some treats and toys for her cats?
Late getting back to see these responses but in case you see this, she likes books like Fourth Wing. But she reads a bunch of other stuff too – she always has a book lol!
One year I sent all my girlfriends a pink silicone spatula for VDay. Still makes me smile when I use mine. Perhaps something useful in a cheery color?
Love this idea – she does love the color pink!
Is anyone a teacher as a “second career”? Growing up, I’d say about half of the teachers at my school had a related previous career before becoming teachers. I was at a private school, so a teaching cert was not necessary. I’m looking to do something similar (originally thought I’d do it in 3-5 years, but my industry is very, very uncertain right now (grant funded), so thinking I’ll need to do it sooner.
Wondering how to both develop the skills needed to teach and how to break into teaching.
What age do you want to teach? do you have kids or spend a lot of time around groups of them? I’d make sure you can stand other people’s kids before you go any further. Look for volunteer opportunities to work with kids (Girls on the Run is training coaches for their spring season right now), based on what I hear from friends and family, classroom management is at least half of teaching effectively.
I’d say that liking kids is a necessary but not sufficient condition. I love love love elementary age kids, have been a Girl Scout leader for years and have also done a lot of one-on-one tutoring and teaching with all ages from K to 12, but I know I would hate being a classroom teacher. I don’t have the personality to manage a group of 20+ kids, and chaperoning field trips convinced me very fast that being a classroom teacher is not something I would be good at or enjoy.
I think you really need to be in a classroom to get a sense of it. Can you substitute teach a few times before leaving your first career? In my area, the qualifications for subbing are practically non-existent. Tutoring one-on-one and working with small groups like in Scouts or similar settings just isn’t a substitute for the classroom experience.
I know a lot of people who have been subbing in schools without teaching degrees. I’d consider trying that to dip your toes in the water of teaching.
In our district you can sub without any kind of degree as long as you are 18. A friend’s kid who literally flunked out of college is now subbing.
There are emergency credentials and other programs to help people make the transition from another career to teaching. But why on earth would you want to in this climate? Nearly all of the many people I know who were teachers have quit to be SAHMs, retired early, or changed careers because of the low pay, terrible working conditions, inability to actually teach, and total lack of support from administration for classroom discipline.
Teaching is a first career for most people. I think 90% of the teachers in our elementary school are under the age of 40, many under 30.
Private school often still has the low pay problem, but sometimes the working conditions are good, there’s an opportunity to actually teach, and (sometimes!) the support for classroom discipline is there as well.
Yes, most of my network is in private schools. Pay is even lower but conditions are much better (supportive admin, small class sizes, classroom discipline, ability to teach AND teach to a high level).
The lower school teachers are mostly first career teachers, middle school is a mix, but I’d say close to half of the upper school teachers are second career. English teachers are former journalists, copywriters, and lawyers. History teachers are former lawyers. Science teachers used to work in industry. My statistics teacher was a former statistician in Pharma.
I grew up in a wealthy district in MA. my public school AP bio teacher was a former ER doc.
My history teacher went to Colgate, worked on Wall Street, then decided to move to the burbs and have a family.
I have a large network of teachers (family and friends), none of whom are leaving the profession (or, a few of my relatives have recently retired… in their late 60s) They might be the outliers (and the schools they are at might be outliers), but they’re still there and still happy with their careers.
I’ve always had an interest in teaching – was between studying education and going into teaching and doing my current career, obviously the current career won out but I always kept teaching as another option in the back of my mind. Honestly, what pushed me into my current field was not wanting to follow countless relatives (including my mother and older brother) into teaching and wanting to blaze my own path.
I work in humanitarian aid (now at an NGO which is grant funded, previously at USAID). My industry disappeared overnight. I haven’t been furloughed or laid off yet, but I know it’s coming. There is no current viable career path for me in my career, I need to tr@nsition jobs.
It’s important to me to a) have a somewhat viable career and b) continue to work in a helping profession – especially now.
I have many skills that I think would tr@nsfer well to teaching. Not that it super matters, without actual teaching experience, but I hope it’s something
Given your background in humanitarian aid, you might be interested in doing a teach-English-abroad job to establish some initial teaching experience (albeit with adults).
Hey sorry to hear that. I know some researchers (not the tenured professors) at a large public university transferred to admin roles across STEM departments when the Iraq war shut down both funding and access to archeology sites in the middle east. You might think outside of the box to take six months to a year to make a plan. Also if you’re in a college town and good at teaching, you might be able to stay afloat charging for tutoring or college prep.
I think teaching in private schools sounds interesting, but is probably going to vary a lot by school culture.
Not sure if you’ll see this bc posting late, but I left a marketing career to become a middle school English teacher. I did an accelerated certification/Master’s in Teaching program at night while working full time. It took one and a half years and I switched to part-time work for my last semester when I was also student teaching. The certification program was invaluable, not only because it qualified me for a higher paying job in a public district, but it also taught me valuable instructional and classroom management skills.
One way to dip your toe in the water and see if you like it would be to find a leave replacement position at a private school. You could be in the role anywhere from six weeks to a year, you’d manage your own classroom, and it’s likely you’d finish the experience with a better understanding of your commitment to this new career path.
It’s an amazing job! Conditions are always challenging, and even more so over the past few weeks. However, it’s still the best, most fun job I’ve ever had!
Yes, teaching totally makes sense with my education and background but I can’t bring myself to do it if I have any other reasonable option. In addition to what others mentioned, there is now reduced special education — those students are being introduced back into regular classrooms (this was already a trend but funding for special education/services was federal so good luck to all), class sizes are already too large and unmanageable. Also there’s violence & school shootings.
Well, I work(ed) in international humanitarian aid (formerly at USAID, now on a USAID grant funded position). I haven’t been laid off or furloughed YET, but it’s coming. My entire industry disappeared overnight. There are no jobs available and there will not be. I’m a mix of being absolutely devastated and so scared and panicking.
The TLDR is that I was between pursuing my current career and teaching, and obviously chose this career, but teaching was always the other thing I was interested in. Regrettably, I ended up taking no education classes and did not do any subbing or student teaching.
I used to joke that I wanted to go teach after I retired because there are too many people in my industry with poor writing, research, and analysis skills (really, really poor writing). I do a lot of editing and coaching with my current team on these skills. It’s also clear that too many people don’t know or understand history, current events, and lack critical thinking skills. Not that any of this is a direct equivalent of being able to teach, but it’s better than starting at zero.
Teaching adults? Sounds like you could be a college adjunct if you design your own course (and they need a fair number of English adjuncts at the freshmen level as it’s a required course). No teaching certification necessary, but it’s also irregular independent contractor work with no benefits & no guarantee of a future schedule. I made less than minimum wage for my time when I did this due to designing the course, meeting with students, and grading. Obviously, you become more efficient in time but I still don’t think it amounts to much.
No, my long term plan was to get into middle or high school teaching – setting up kids with the skills they’d need in adulthood. I actually graduate with my MA in May (the irony) and was thinking I’d maybe adjunct in my program or community college to get started in teaching before making the jump but, the timeline has changed.
OP – you sound awesome to me. I think teaching can be a great second career and I have multiple friends doing it. They are all in public schools (nice benefits) and range from being in really challenging diverse and low performing classrooms (hard) to the AP. One of my friends does all in one day (high school). I have even thought about it as a second career for myself.
Yes, is hard, but everything is relative and your drive/skills/personality are what will determine whether it is a good fit.
Good luck.
If you want to teach in public schools, you need to figure out what the path to certification or alternative certification or subbing is in your state or district. If you want to teach in private schools, then I’d look at the websites of local private schools or work your network to figure out what the typical CV looks like and how they get hired. If you don’t have any teaching or kid related experience, I’d at least start by volunteering somewhere you could get some (tutoring or coaching?).
OP, check out the Teach for America program
Teach for America involves going to teach in underserved schools. Maybe that is what OP is looking for, but I’d say you have a better shot at private schools. I also attended private school growing up and I had some teachers for whom teaching was their second career. some were better than others.
It’s experience for beginners that offers full-time employment *shrugs*
TFA alum, here. TFA is not what OP is looking for. Not by a long shot.
So what is TFA then if not for teaching experience for prospective teachers? More like a paid volunteer position or something?
Just wanted to say that I”m so sorry that you’re in the position you’re in, needing to find a new career field overnight
nais.org
https://www.nais.org/careers/
Looking for a comfy lounge chair for reading and would love recommendations. I’m primarily looking for my home office, and given the layout of the room this will be behind me in zoom calls (though to the side slightly, and I blur my background for work calls). I think I’d like something with an ottoman but it doesn’t necessarily have to match. I keep gravitating towards the eames chair but I think that’s just because of popularity, not that it’s necessarily my dream style/aesthetic. TIA!
What IS your dream style/aesthetic? Do you want something low to the ground and mid-century modern? Do you want a classic wing chair with a firm cushion–or with cushy down? Do you lean modern, classic, cottage, grandma, retro?
Myself, I love curling up in a papasan. Whether they’re currently popular/trendy comes and goes, but I love them and they’re visually interesting. Definitely not something with broad appeal, but you don’t need to limit yourself to what had broad appeal.
We have Eames chairs and love them, FWIW.
Ikea POANG armchair is my current favorite for reading. I have one with a white leather cover, but I’m sure you could always get some kind of custom covers if needed!
So I did write to my congressperson this morning, specifically about the villainaires and the checks and balances.
I literally wrote an email about 8am or so.
It is 9:45. I have received a response (saying I’m right, district leans liberal) that is 5 paragraphs long but also somehow customized.
By “somehow” I mean it is clearly AI – not just a form letter.
I don’t even know who’s in charge anymore, the machines or the machine makers or the machine inventors? It’s not the machine regulators, that’s for sure
Write a quick note complaining about their letter? Or five paragraphs of AI complaining about it lol
+ 1
I would totally ask chat gpt to generate a response.
Yes, by all means waste their time reading your complaint that they responded to you. That’s how to win.
Do you struggle with reading comprehension? I suggested that she use chatgpt to generate her response to their response. If they are saving time, why not save time as well? She read their response and can ask chatgpt to draft a response addressing some of the points.
That does not have to involve a complaint about how they may have used AI.
No. Why is she responding? That’s a waste of time. She registered her issues and got a response.
It very well might be AI, but it also might just be the legislative correspondent working from pre-prepared responses. I did this job back when the world was much saner (seriously, I thought things were nuts over the ACA debate. Oh how far we’ve come…) and we had various paragraphs the Congressperson had already approved that we could mix and match from and tweak slightly as appropriate, so you could get somewhat customized responses. (and for actually unique letters that required unique responses, my Congressperson really did read them all before they went out. He was good people. Again, sigh, simpler times.)
I used to write those form paragraphs and the language is super precise. I’m not sure they would use AI because the risk of it using the wrong terminology or getting something incorrect is too high.
This … actually is a brilliant use for AI. Writing thank you notes for donations and responding to constituent complaints (of all ideologies, I don’t mean you specifically) just eats time without imparting any benefit to the interns. Since they are just logging the traffic on issues to gauge the weight of public support, it’s not like the rhetoric or arguments in your letter actually matter. They’re just being more transparent about it not mattering.
No. Just write me a brief message that you’ve received and noted my response. A brief statement of their position on the issue is also fine. Don’t waste my time with a long AI message please!!
You feel like this, but I can guarantee you that you’d find ample counter examples, of people who are insulted by receiving a mere acknowledgement of receipt, either because the message sounds cold and uncaring, or because only a wordy response makes them confident that their complaint has been heard or will be acted on. I wouldn’t get hung up on what is ultimately a stylistic choice.
It’s insulting that they think our reading comprehension is so low that we won’t see through that
You realize most Americas only have about a 6th grade reading level right?
Yea about the reading level, but let’s not use that to deceive them. All the more reason to reply with something brief and clear.
It’s not stylistic to be convoluted, incomprehensible, not actually addressing the audience
Yeah, I would rather a brief acknowledgement than something that /pretends/ to be a real personal engagement but is not. Same reason I have the squicks about all those startups that want to solve loneliness by giving your grandma a stuffed animal with chatgpt or “ai therapists” affirming you, or AI writing the quick check in text I want to send a friend going through a hard time
On the topic of supporting journalism — how are you all managing Substack? I don’t have an unlimited budget and at $5 a month per subscription it can add up fast.
I only pay for a handful of subs (6) and will likely cut two out as they either rarely post or I no longer enjoy the content. I find many of the more established authors are good about doing 1 free post/wk which is a good way to get a sense of if they’re worth paying for.
I am trying to cut down on my social media and I enjoy reading substacks/chat posts when I have 5 minutes (waiting in line, in between tasks). It scratches the ‘must play with phone’ itch but in a (I think) healthier way.
Set your budget for subscriptions. Then pick the authors you want to support within those numbers. I prioritize the authors whose work I would want to continue regardless of whether I personally read it — I’m picking more like choosing an NGO to support vs paying for an entertainment service (nothing wrong with subscribing to substacks as entertainment; this is just for the “how do I support journalism” part!)
I don’t. I think it’s more important to spend my news budget on real news organizations that can do investigative journalism and cover local communities than on opinions. If I were wealthier, I might spend more money on this, but I’d still probably put that money toward another official news source, an advocacy organization, or charity before substack, which feels more like entertainment to me (I’m sure there are some exceptions, just not the ones I sometimes read and would be inclined to subscribe to).
You’re making a lot of assumption – there are trained journalists using substack. I pay for a subscription to a local news newsletter written by legacy reporters who once worked for the established local paper in my city. They were fired when it was purchased by McClatchy.
Yeah, I think this is an important distinction! The people I support on substack are functionally investigative journalists – they follow journalism ethics; they are upfront about sources & methodology, and they give explanations of how they approach controversial topics (like under what circumstances they’ll allow. source anonymity vs not). I wouldn’t prioritize paying for ones that are primarily opinions.
I pick one or two at a time and unsubscribe when my interest wanes
+1
Sometimes I join one and read a lot of it for several months, then leave.
Sharing this NYT column that is an incredibly clear-eyed look at what it means for us in this moment as Americans. Whatever happens next, we are irrevocably altered as a country from here.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/opinion/trump-musk-federal-government.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uk4.sIpK.MNeiyDW4hSSG&smid=url-share
I agree. It’s very tempting to think that institutions will save us or that the descent into autocracy “can’t happen” here. This article lays out why that isn’t true.
In a local paper, a former friend of Elon Musk wrote that Musk gave the Nazi salute to the audience in hope that the whole audience would give it back, demonstrating that Musk has power over a crowd like Hitler and Trump. It didn’t happen, but it might in the future. He’ll keep trying.
And internationally. EU gives about twice as much as the US to international democracy supporting projects but the US AID withdrawal has been so fast that programs will be shuttered before the EU can even step in with make up funds.
It’s an attack on democracy not just in the US but worldwide. And various anti-corruption initiatives around the world, let alone all the health care related ones. China will have a huge opening for increased influence.
Ok, talk to me like I’m 10. Why isn’t something like US AID actually fluff that can be cut given our huge deficits? I’m not endorsing how it was done, but just in the grand scheme of things, why is this our responsibility?
Soft power and CIA cover.
This. Soft power is incredibly important. Africa is incredibly important, and China is winning there. That will have real practical implications for the US within our lifetimes.
Yes, it is really concerning how China has quietly spread its sphere of influence so deep throughout Africa.
I can’t write a full exposition, but in part, these are effectively diplomatic missions. They are projects that create goodwill and bring the U.S. and it’s ideology (previously, colorably democracy and equal rights and freedom of all the things) into the country’s conversation. Abandoning them could mean that China enters those spaces, and this their ideologies (which already is happening more and more, particularly since Trump 1.0).
So is it not just colonialism light?
I am sure someone could stretch and pull and knead it enough to make it the subject of demonization as colonialism, but the projects themselves do not involve seizing power or settlement of land. And I for one do not think all forms of governance are equal – democracy with freedoms and equal rights is superior. So I am good with spreading the word through good works. That said, this ignores entirely the aspect of USAID being used as cover for CIA missions, which can involve attempts at regime change, etc. I am treating them separately, but the reality is not as simple.
Well, you can make a moral and ethical argument: we live in a world, and taking care of others is an important imperative.
You can make a political argument: isolationism requires self-sufficiency, and we don’t have that (oil, gas, etc.).
You can make an economic argument: Cutting USAID is like siphoning a teaspoon from a barrel of water. We’re avoiding taking away from defense (which would actually make a budgetary difference) because there are interested parties who make a lot of money from defense contracts. It’s akin to universities trying to balance budgets by getting rid of the cheapest departments (theater, languages) and ignoring that other departments (lab-based departments) cost way more.
And that draws together these three threads. Cutting USAID doesn’t actually affect efficiency or finances much. It does allow people across the globe to suffer more. It falsely present sa kind of isolationist ethos (“you’re not our responsibility”) that only stretches to places and people that don’t offer us things we want. And it maintains the wealth of a very few but pretends to function in the same of financial responsibility.
Cutting USAID isn’t about isolationism or refusing to help others—it’s about recognizing that much of this money is wasted, mismanaged, or funneled into the pockets of corrupt governments and special interests. If foreign aid actually worked as intended, we wouldn’t see the same countries receiving billions year after year with little to show for it.
The argument that it’s just a “teaspoon from a barrel” is ridiculous. 40 bil is not nothing—it’s an enormous sum of taxpayer money. If it’s being misused, wasted, or funneled into pet projects, that’s outright theft. The fact that defense spending is also bloated doesn’t justify keeping ineffective programs afloat. Waste should be cut wherever it exists, not excused because other areas of government are also reckless with spending.
Right now, too much of it is just another racket benefiting the politically connected while taxpayers foot the bill.
I’m afraid I just don’t agree with you. I didn’t say 40 billion is nothing — but I stand by the fact that performative “efficiency” will do very little to put forth any financial goal. But it will have other effects, including withdrawing medical support for places that need it (and which itself has global effects). It will open up avenues for Russian and Chinese economic and political influence, particularly in Africa. And I disagree that one should cut waste in this roughshod, thoughtless, and illegal manner.
So there are inefficiencies in international aid. I would approve of a thoughtful program to identify them, to be more rigorous about measuring results, etc. “Feeding USAID to the woodchipper” isn’t that.
But I want to address the assertion that aid doesn’t work or that most of it is diverted to corruption – this is simply not true! Global under-5 mortality is down 60% since 1990. I worked in a country where families went from “everyone loses multiple children” to “you probably know a family that lost a child, but it’s not every family” in one generation. Imagine being a mother who now sees one of her surviving daughters being unlikely to bear that terrible pain, and saying aid made no difference.
Girls enrollment rates in primary and secondary school are within a few % points of boys’ – if you told me that would be true 30 years ago, I would have asked who your dealer was.
Millions of people exit extreme poverty every day.
There are a ton of issues yet to be solved but since the success stories don’t make the news as often, it’s easy to get the idea that “nothing works” – and that’s just not the reality. Thank you coming to my ted talk :)
This argument is misleading because it falsely attributes broad global improvements to USAID, when in reality, economic growth, technological advancements, and private-sector innovation have been the real drivers of progress. Correlation is not causation.
Pointing to lower child mortality and higher school enrollment is an emotional appeal, not a justification for government-run foreign aid. These improvements have come largely from medical breakthroughs, better infrastructure, and market-driven development—not bureaucratic programs funneling money through layers of inefficiency.
@ Anon 1:16pm
Do you have any links to studies showing that “market driven development” has lowered child mortality? In what way? In which areas?
You are writing a bunch of right wing words like ‘private innovation’ and providing no evidence or examples whatsoever. You accuse the poster of ‘falsely attributing global improvements’ to international aid programs without providing any factual basis for your own view that it’s market driven/private sector.
Oh yeah, I am not claiming USAID is fully be responsible for all global progress and apologies if it sounded that way.
How exactly to measure and evaluate various development projects is like development economists’ favorite thing to get in a bar fight over. There’s legitimate pros and cons to several different methodologies, and I am totally down for a rigorous, data driven, national discussion about how we want USAID to operate – but I don’t see us getting that.
It’s also hard to disentangle aid from economic growth – if a kid goes to an aid funded school, and grows up and has the skills to start a business to employ 10 people, what % of that is attributable to the original aid? what % should be attributed to some random program that gave his family free mosquito bednets and so this kid never got brain damage from cerebral malaria? What % to the funded road his business’ trucks use sometimes but not all the time? Economics is messy
Why are we debating the pros and cons of this without first saying that what Musk/Trump is doing is blatantly illegal? It is for Congress to deal with what money gets doled out. The money was impounded. Trump/Musk (i.e. “Mump”) is not going through Congress.
Aid we don’t provide may well be provided by Russia or China, giving them a foothold and credibility (and thus power) in that location.
Ignoring for a moment that there is inherent value in not letting people die from preventable diseases. International aid and development achieves things which cannot be achieved by military force.
Healthcare initiatives are important because the interconnected nature of the modern world. TB is a problem in many parts of the world. Smallpox is not actually completely eradicated. Americans are not vaccinated against either of these. US has airline connections to many of these places.
Democratic and uncorrupt countries tend to be more prosperous and stable. For example, widespread corruption means high cost of doing business for US companies because they have to pay off officials to be able to sell their goods or to operate mines or buy real estate in those countries.
International development also has economic benefits for the USA by increasing markets into which the US can sell its goods. More highly developed countries purchase and consume more goods and more complex goods.
USA has a perception that it spends a lot more than the rest of the world. It does not. The USA is a large country so the comparison of absolute dollars is often used to misrepresent the contribution. UN development aid target is 0.7% of Gross National Income. The US gives 0.22%. Basically every other European country and Canada, UK and Australia gives more with Norway being one of the highest at 1%. Five times what the US does. US also seems to think it does a lot more than it actually does. Like when Trump threatened to pull aid from South Africa and the extent of the aid is an HIV prevention program. That’s not make or break for South Africa.
Another example, NATO contributions are supposed to be 2% of GDP. Most member states meet those requirements. US would like it to be 4% when the US doesn’t even contribute 4% itself.
But the US is also a country where people who can’t afford cancer treatment are just left to die so it’s not surprising that there is not a lot of support for preventing people in South Africa from dying from HIV.
What’s disappointing is that the roll back of programs has happened so quickly that it has not allowed other donor countries a chance to determine what programs have been cut and whether they want to take over funding those programs. If you don’t want to pay, fine. But at least give allied countries a chance to foot the bill.
Are cancer patients in the USA just left to die, or does the bureaucratic process of spending all one’s money and then qualifying for and getting on Medicaid just take too long for cancer patients to survive in time to get treatment? (Do people who can’t afford cancer treatment get left to die if they were already on Medicaid for not being able to afford healthcare?)
Not everyone qualifies for Medicaid. It varies by state. Many people make too much for Medicaid but cannot afford insurance. More than 8% of Americans are uninsured which is unique among high incomes countries. This explains how the US pays A LOT more than countries for healthcare and gets worse results. MRIs cost 420% more in the US than Australia. https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2023/jan/us-health-care-global-perspective-2022
The idea that international aid is some noble, life-saving mission sounds great in theory—but in practice, the money rarely reaches the people it’s supposed to help.
Take healthcare initiatives. Yes, preventing diseases is important, but how much of this aid actually goes toward medicine and treatment? Corruption, bureaucracy, and middlemen eat up massive chunks of these funds before they ever touch the ground. Just look at the millions funneled into governments with track records of embezzlement and human rights abuses. The money often disappears into the pockets of officials, consultants, and NGOs with cozy relationships with Western politicians, while the sick and vulnerable see little real benefit.
Then there’s the economic argument. The claim that foreign aid “creates markets” for American goods ignores the fact that these countries rarely become self-sufficient. Instead, they become dependent on continuous inflows of money, propping up governments that never develop sustainable economies. If aid were truly effective, why are so many of the same countries still receiving billions after decades with no meaningful progress?
Welp, I guess we’ll see. I certainly hope the thrill of watching someone illegally and mindlessly slash programs is worth the risk of withdrawing medical care and other forms of support.
So the answer is that it takes too long to become poor enough to qualify for Medicaid for an urgent health need? Or not everyone can qualify no matter what they do?
@ Anon 12:25
“The idea that international aid is some noble, life-saving mission sounds great in theory—but in practice, the money rarely reaches the people it’s supposed to help.”
– Plenty of times aid reaches those it is supposed to help.
– Efficacy in reaching the program goals can be measured and defined. These programs were not cut because they were individually assessed as inefficient or ineffective. They were cut because it’s politically popular with Trump voters and there is a lot of conflicting information about how much will be saved. Some people think as much as 25% of the US budget is spent on these programs vs. the reality of closer to 0.5%.
“Take healthcare initiatives. Yes, preventing diseases is important, but how much of this aid actually goes toward medicine and treatment?”
– Again this is measurable and the programs were not cut because this was not achieved. Commonly used metrics include number of vaccinations given or reduction in number of infections (eg through use of malaria nets).
“Corruption, bureaucracy, and middlemen eat up massive chunks of these funds before they ever touch the ground.”
– This is not inherent true of international aid and development programs. In areas where there are issues, sometimes there are a balancing of interests. Eg. hiring the local politician’s brother as a truck driver to deliver goods but it ensures the medical clinic gets the supplies on time. These types of issues are not unique to international aid vs domestic spending and can be managed in similar ways.
“Just look at the millions funneled into governments with track records of embezzlement and human rights abuses.”
– when this kind of thing occurs it is often a balance between America’s self interest – eg. reducing TB so it doesn’t spread to the unvaccinated USA vs. not reducing TB because of opposition to local govt on certain issues. Cases of embezzlement or human rights abuses are often tied to aid provided in furtherance of US security interests.
“The money often disappears into the pockets of officials, consultants, and NGOs with cozy relationships with Western politicians, while the sick and vulnerable see little real benefit.”
– Again, this is an unfounded argument. Any area can be corrupt. Cancelling all programs is also a policy decision with effects. For example, by cancelling an anti-corruption program in a country with corruption issues, the US has indirectly support corruption in that country. Cancelling aid can have just as much, if not worse, impacts than ineffectively delivered aid, depending on the specific situation.
“Then there’s the economic argument. The claim that foreign aid “creates markets” for American goods ignores the fact that these countries rarely become self-sufficient.”
– A country can become a signficiant purchaser of US goods even without being wholly self-sufficient. Further, the goal of aid is not always self-sufficiency. For example, the US has military bases in many areas around the world. Full self sufficiency might lead those countries to be less amenable to housing US military bases.
“Instead, they become dependent on continuous inflows of money, propping up governments that never develop sustainable economies. If aid were truly effective, why are so many of the same countries still receiving billions after decades with no meaningful progress?”
– Significant and meaningful progress has occurred worldwide. Quick easy example is the development of a meningitis vaccine. Or Golos in Russia and the documenting of significant election fraud. Measurable progress does not mean that a goal has been met. For example, in 2000 the WHO and CDC declared measles eradicated in the US but since then the anti-vax movement and international air travel has created significant setbacks in that area with 1300 domestic cases in 2019. Development is not always linear – domestically or internationally.
I also want to note that many of your comments seem to indicate your view that most aid is funneled to corrupt governments. A significant amount of aid goes directly to on the ground NGOs that are doing measurable and effective work in the field. All donor governments want to see effective use of their development aid dollars. If your true concern is return on investment, the answer is not inherently cutting funding but setting measurable goals and assessing how programs meet those metrics.
Anonymous @ 1:19 — thank you so much.
Soft power – USAID is stamped on all the bags that the free school lunch that is your only reliable meal your whole childhood; you grow up feeling favorably disposed to the US. China in particular is pouring huge amounts of money into developing countries (I watched the World Cup on a free China provided, satellite TV in rural Guinea, and that program is buying a TON of good will!)
Reduce crisis migration & refugees: its cheaper for us to help people with basic needs, security and economic development in their home country than deal with millions of desperate folks at the border
Economics: we benefit from having more stable, wealthier, countries to trade with. As countries exit extreme poverty and become middle income, they buy more American goods and produce stuff Americans want to buy
Other cross border issues : eg. USAID supports health care systems & emerging pathogen research in a lot of countries; if a new drug resistant TB variant or faster-spreading ebola form pops up, but isn’t caught until it’s widespread, that’s going to affect us too eventually. Climate change is another big one – if a low income country builds a pile of coal power plants because they’re cheap, we will suffer the effects as well. If we help and support improved grid efficiency and solar in that country, we all benefit.
Morality – obviously opinions vary here, but if you are any kind of an ethical altruist or utilitarian, you can save a lot of lives per dollar with USAID vs directing that money to Americans.
Removing AID leaves a vacuum for China to rush in to replace us. It also will cause dismay and harm, which can redound to the detriment of the United States. AID assistance is not there to help foreigners; it is there to help the United States, by reducing the risk of foreigners getting mad at the United States and causing us harm. It is incredibly inexpensive insurance. The more foreigners like the United States, the safer we are. This destruction will have a multiplier harmful effect.
Comment earlier this week about buying clothes for the life and body I want, rather than the one I have, really resonated with me and I am trying to use it to filter purchases.
https://ruti.com/products/look-in-the-back-pleated-blouse
For example, I LOVE this blouse so hard, but is it only so lovely b/c the model is so slender? I have a real booty (size ten pear) and wonder if this would just emphasize it. What do you think?
Had not heard of this brand and while they are definitely over-indexed on barrel pants, I do love a few of their pieces.
This is a lovely blouse
With a booty, might be best with a skirt in the same color, but jeans are ok too! Could also go over a dress!
I think it depends if you’re a pear who is wider side-to-side or front-to-back. If the pleats can hang straight, it would probably retain the effect on the model.
Ha! I missed this thread but have wasted a lot of money in my life buying clothes for the life and body I want. DON’T DO IT! You’ll end up with a closet full of beautiful clothes that don’t fit and that you won’t wear. And then if they do fit one day, something will be off and you’ll donate bags and bags of stuff. Please learn from my 20’s and 30’s.
If I have any advice (I really don’t) is figure out the clothes you wear every day and buy better versions of them.
Oh, how unique and lovely.
No no no… my body is like yours. It will just rest on our butts and we will lose the lovely line.
Wayfair is your friend here
How do you read? With your legs curled up under you, or crossed? Do you use a lap desk or pillows? Do you lean back?
An easy option is a maternity style glider, these are always on FB marketplace. Can easily replace any pillows with your own favorite colors. Often these include ottomans
Nesting fail because I was posting too quickly
Do you consider yourself a good person?
I’m go first. I consider myself neutral, although I do a lot of positive things I still have a ways to go before I’d consider myself good. I buy food with packaging, fly about once a year, and only protest a few times a year (in the summer, because I’m soft and don’t like being cold). I need to be more willing to make myself uncomfortable.
I don’t think checking off a list makes you a good person.
To be a good person, above all you must treat others with dignity and compassion at all times.
Yes. And I don’t consider anything related to protesting or boycotting to be anywhere near the list of what makes someone a good person.
Agree 100 percent. How are you treating the people right in front of you? How do you make decisions?
+1 I think taking care of others in all realms of life and teaching/mentoring the next generation, at work or at home, rank much higher than holding up a sign for a few hours.
I consider myself a good person and I’ve never protested in my life, nor do I suspect I ever will. These things are not synonymous.
Ask me when I’m not blind with rage over Trump and Musk. Perhaps the revenge fantasies I’m entertaining mean I’m a terrible person.
Can I be your friend? Oh wait, we can’t do that because the Republicans on here will just gloat again about how we are crying over everything (instead of examining why they lost their moral compass and compassion for the less privileged).
Yes, and I do not view any of the things you’ve listed as relevant to being a good or bad person.
Same. How do you treat people?
I like the standard “how do you treat people who can offer you nothing/who have fewer advantages than you.” How someone treats a homeless person, a child, a friend in distress can be very telling.
Do you differentiate between being good and being nice?
Being a good person is reflected in how you treat others, kindness, empathy, honesty, respect, compassion, integrity, doing the right thing. Contributing positively to society is part of it but not necessarily required.
I view all humans as fundamentally evil and selfish. A few try to be less selfish. That’s what passes for “good.” Attending protests and engaging in other performative acts of virtue-signaling does not contribute to unselfishness.
Yes and agree with everyone else that the things you listed have nothing to do with it. I’m a vegan and do a reasonable amount to purchase from places that are “better” than others, but I still have a real problem linking consumer habits to morality. I actually think too much focus on personal consumption is detrimental to morality, which should be less selfish and more focused on how you treat others, though obviously they can’t be separated entirely (there is a reason I do the things I do, I just think they shouldn’t be the main focus or reason to judge others, given how complex and different everyone’s life is).
Exactly. Am I going to call my friend who receives WIC benefits immoral for shopping at Walmart, Target, and other discount stores? Absolutely not. Being able to be a discerning consumer usually means that you have a good deal of privilege on your side. And that’s fine, but I get tired of privileged people vilifying others’ consumer habits.
Not to mention that most people who can afford to buy from the more ethical brands are still buying more stuff, often A LOT more stuff, and consuming a lot more generally, than the poorer person, which from an environmental perspective is clearly worse. I think a good person does give some thought to their consumption, but life is complicated and anyone who is making some effort to consider the effects of their actions within the constraints placed on them can be a good person.
Are any of the commenters here on WIC though?
I’m not now, but I have been.
Consequentialism is a fundamentally flawed branch of philosophy. As such, I think most people are good (self included) because most people have good intentions more often than not. Certainly there’s hardly anyone that’s trying to hurt people and cause problems, just a lot of people who have no intentions at all and would be served well with a little more reflection and awareness of the world.
I just try to be a little better every day without worrying whether I meet an arbitrary standard of goodness right now.
I want to live wherever you do!
Growing up my mom always told me to never assume malice where ignorance would do. So instead of assuming someone is trying to cause problems on purpose, I just assume they’re being stupid. There are some folks who really test that assumption, (politics anyone?) but it works very well in most cases.
I can’t see it as ignorance unless that definition is stretched really far. Maybe they’re passing on a trauma or abuse cycle or they haven’t faced their own fear of death or something more philosophical, but they certainly take it out on other people.
You are correct that I use a broad definition of ignorance that includes cycles of abuse and common cultural blind spots. But if you don’t approach people kindly, with the knowledge that they can do better, they’re going to have a much much harder time changing if the idea ever occurs to them at all.
I think we owe something to each other, morally, and to be a good person is to acknowledge and practice that. For me, that “owing” would take the form of treating everyone with dignity and respect, and preventing harm to them.
Preventing harm is something of a continuum though, and people can disagree on where the line is drawn. For example, I think homeless people should be provided shelter. I would not offer up my own home because there can be a real risk to my personal safety and family but I advocate for and support government and non-profit programs to do this instead. I don’t think that refusing to do it on an individual scale makes me a bad person though some probably would, or call me a hypocrite.
I consider myself a good mother. That’s my focus right now. Do I do enough in support of my moral/religious/political beliefs? No, and as my kids grow up I will be able to do more.
Part of my faith tradition and my belief system is the conviction that we all fall short. I try to love my neighbor, but some days are better than others. I’m trying.
Any crazy ex-girlfriend fans? The song “I’m a good person” goes through my head a lot. I feel like a lot of us are Rebecca-style good people.
I go out of my way to treat people well (at least initially – there is a point where I will drop the hammer). That’s everyone from family to ex husband to random strangers and the people who work in service professions.
I try to use the s— I’ve gone through in life to help other people avoid the same pain.
Not sure if that makes me a good person… it seems like the bare minimum of being human, but maybe a lot of people can’t step over the bar that is on the floor.
@Kat – over the past few days I keep getting video ads here that are auto-playing sound.