'Harris shouldn't expect the victims of her equity policies to vote for her'

'Stoking inflation'

"Harris has also demonstrated she understands what millions of Americans also believe—that we spend $115 billion on police already each year and ask them to do too much, from investigating serious cases to responding to mental health calls and wellness checks," Rahman said. 

'Not even intraday on the NASDAQ'

'I wanted to help the people of Mexico'

'It's crazy'

Movies & TV Babylon 5 Rewatch Babylon 5 Rewatch: “A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I” Sinclair and Ivanova investigate an “uninhabited” planet, and Garibaldi grapples with troubling news from Mars… By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on August 5, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share “A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I”Written by J. Michael StraczynskiDirected by Janet GreekSeason 1, Episode 18Production episode 120Original air date: July 27, 1994 It was the dawn of the third age… B5 has been getting some strange readings from Epsilon III, the planet they’re in orbit of, so a geological survey team heads out in a shuttle, led by Dr. Tasaki. As it launches, Ivanova expresses concern that they haven’t heard anything from Mars in the latest batch of dispatches from Earth. That will probably be important later. The shuttle has to turn back when an energy discharge from the planet destabilizes them. Tasaki isn’t sure what caused it, but he’s excited to go back and figure it out. A steady stream of energy pulses is coming from the planet now, which Sinclair orders Ivanova to keep an eye on. After Delenn finishes a negotiation with Sinclair and Mollari, she returns to her quarters to find her old teacher and mentor Draal waiting for her. She is delighted to see him, though she is less delighted to learn why Draal is there. He is “going to the sea,” which appears to be a Minbari euphemism for suicide. Draal says he no longer recognizes Minbar and doesn’t want to be part of it anymore. However, he also says he’s not in a rush to get to the sea in question, and intends to spend as much time with Delenn catching up as he can, which placates her somewhat. A breaking news report from ISN reveals that there has been rioting on Mars, with the Free Mars movement getting their hands on heavy weapons. Sinclair then sees the image of an alien asking him for help. Sinclair and Ivanova discuss the Mars situation over breakfast. They figure that Garibaldi—who lived and worked on Mars prior to taking the post on B5—is beside himself. That is, if anything, an understatement, as Garibaldi is a mess, worried about what happened to his ex, Lise Hampton. He can’t get a signal through, so he goes to Winters to ask if she can talk to the secret Psi Corps base on Mars. Winters—who is already nonplussed by the fact that Garibaldi keeps showing up in the elevator when she wants to take it—is not thrilled that Garibaldi even knows about the facility. But she says she’ll talk to them and see what she can do, but no promises. Credit: Warner Bros. Television After being told very explicitly by Ivanova not to go into the atmosphere, Tasaki takes his shuttle into the atmosphere. (Ivanova sent Starfuries to escort them this time, but they aren’t designed to function in an atmosphere.) Sure enough, some missiles fire on the shuttle, which the Starfuries are (barely) able to distract or destroy. The shuttle and Starfuries head back to the station, where Tasaki reports that the missiles were fired from a crevasse that’s about five miles deep, and which wasn’t on the original survey—but which may have been created by the recent seismic activity. Because it may be a first contact situation, Sinclair and Ivanova take another shuttle down to investigate what’s happening on Epsilon III. It was chosen as the site for B5 precisely because it was uninhabited, so they need to investigate. They fly down, avoiding the missiles, and disembark. They need breathing apparatus, and—after finding a corpse—are able to get past a brutal security measure. Eventually, they come across a massive machine whose components are miles long. Winters gets in touch with the Mars Psi Corps base. They’re not happy that Garibaldi knows about the base—and they’re not even sure he really does, just that he suspects and is trying to verify it—but they do check on any mentions of Hampton. However, they can find no mention of her among the people who are accounted for. Garibaldi is confident that she’s okay for no obvious reason except for uncharacteristically cockeyed optimism (or denial). Another bit of seismic shock hits Epsilon III, cutting Sinclair and Ivanova off from the shuttle. However, they find an alien attached to the machine: this is Varn, the same alien Sinclair and Mollari saw images of. He says they’re all in really big trouble. They free him from the machine and he leads them to the shuttle by another route so they can get him to medlab on B5. Credit: Warner Bros. Television As the shuttle takes off, the jump gate opens, and a big-ass ship comes through… To be continued… Nothing’s the same anymore. Proving that he doesn’t understand that he’s on a TV show where stuff like this wouldn’t be mentioned without a plot reason, Sinclair dismisses Ivanova’s concerns about the lack of news from Mars as probably being a glitch. Ivanova is God. This section gets its title from Ivanova’s words to Tasaki after he disobeyed her instruction not to go into the atmosphere of Epsilon III with his shuttle: “I’d like you to take the time to learn the Babylon 5 mantra: ‘Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova’s recommendations. Ivanova is God. And if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out.’” The household god of frustration. Garibaldi was dating Hampton on Mars, but when he got the offer to take the gig on B5, it led to an argument because she didn’t want to leave Mars. If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Like far too many old people, Draal doesn’t like the way Minbar is going, because it’s not like it used to be, and these kids today don’t got no respect, and in my day Minbar was Minbar, dammit! In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari sees Garibaldi being all despondent crying into his water in the Zocalo, so he cheers him up with the story of an exotic dancer he saw perform whom he shortly thereafter married. Mollari also is apparently completely bumfuzzled by the human song known as “The Hokey Pokey,” as he is having tremendous trouble determining how, exactly, that’s what it’s all about… Credit: Warner Bros. Television Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. While G’Kar does not appear in the episode, his nonexistent ears were likely burning at Mollari complaining about how difficult he is to negotiate with and how inevitable the Centauri-Narn hatred is and shall remain. The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. Psi Corps has a sooper-seekrit base on Mars because of course they do. Garibaldi knows about it, because of course he does. No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Garibaldi obviously carries a big ol’ torch for Hampton. Welcome aboard. Louis Turenne debuts the recurring role of Draal. He will continue in the role for Part II, but afterward, starting in season two’s “The Long, Twilight Struggle,” the role will be played by John Schuck. Turenne will return in the third season’s “Convictions” in another recurring role (one without heavy prosthetics), that of Brother Theo. Curt Lowens plays Varn, who will also return for Part II. Jim Ishida plays Tasaki Trivial matters. This is B5’s first two-parter, in part inspired by the strong sales of the VHS tapes of the two-hour pilot in Europe and Japan, and so they were encouraged to do another episode that could be similarly sold. Two future recurring characters are first referenced in this episode: Garibaldi’s ex, Lise Hampton, who will appear in Part II, and Delenn’s fellow Grey Councillor (and fellow former student of Draal’s) Rarthenn, who will appear in “War Without End.” This is the only mention of Mollari’s other wife, who would appear to predate the three arranged-marriage wives he mentioned back in “The War Prayer.” The notion of Free Mars getting their hands on heavy weapons was first mentioned in “Eyes.” The echoes of all of our conversations. “It’s a Russian thing. When we’re about to do something stupid, we like to catalogue the full extent of our stupidity for future reference.” —Ivanova to Sinclair as they go on their mission. Credit: Warner Bros. Television The name of the place is Babylon 5. “And so here we are: victims of mathematics.” It’s really hard to judge this episode on its own, for much the same reason why it’s hard to judge most any first part of a two-part episode: it’s all setup. More to the point, it feels like it’s two separate episodes mushed together unconvincingly in order to make the two-parter that Warner Bros. could then sell as a two-hour VHS tape. This is not helped by a particularly weak cliffhanger. Rather than end on Sinclair and Ivanova finding Varn, they instead end on Sinclair and Ivanova having already rescued Varn and heading back to B5, thus draining any possibility of suspense. And the actual cliffhanger is Garibaldi saying “What the hell?” as a ship comes through the jump gate—a ridiculously commonplace occurrence. Still, there’s some fun stuff here. While Garibaldi’s worry-about-his-ex storyline is kinda meh, the scene where Mollari cheers him up is beautifully played by Peter Jurasik and Jerry Doyle, with the added punchline of Mollari wandering off and sticking Garibaldi with the bill. That punchline, by the way, is funnier than Mollari’s attempted dissection of “The Hokey Pokey,” which didn’t tickle my fancy as much as it might have others, though you can totally see how someone unfamiliar with humans would be completely confused by it. Hell, I’ve been hearing it all my life, and I’m fairly certain I’m human, and I’m completely confused by it… Mira Furlan beautifully plays Delenn’s affection for Draal, while Louis Turrene has a quiet dignity as Draal. And I adore Jim Ishida’s Tasaki and wish we’d seen him again, as his enthusiasm for science is adorable and infectious. Plus, we’ve got the “Ivanova is God” speech. Honestly, the whole episode is worth it for that… Next week: “A Voice in the Wilderness, Part II.”[end-mark] The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I” appeared first on Reactor.

Back-to-school season is here, and with the recent examples of race-based classroom activities and sexually charged curriculum in schools nationwide, parents are right to wonder what their students will be taught this fall. A recent commentary by an education reporter about his own children revealed that last year his sixth grader had no homework, spelling tests, handwriting exercises, or times tables. “I’m concerned that my list [of topics and tools left out] is symbolic of the broader American education experience,” Chad Alderman wrote for The 74, the education news site. “Schools need to teach students facts, figures, dates, and other specifics before they can expect kids to think critically about those areas.” A foundation of facts and figures helps students to be creative because we base new ideas on established knowledge—we need material to help us create something else. (To wit, Albert Einstein is credited with saying: “It is the supreme joy of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”) Yet radical racial and sexual content in K-12 schools is curbing creative thinking. In some cases, the books that children are required to read contribute to this phenomenon. For example, in Montgomery County, Maryland, the 2024-2025 English curriculum features kindergarten and first grade books such as “D Is for Drum: A Native American Alphabet” by Michael Shoulders and“Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! A Palestinian Tale” by Margaret Read MacDonald. Perhaps such books seem harmless based on the titles, but the foundation of this curriculum, Amplify CKLA, says it is “built on the conviction that equitable instruction is vital to an effective program.” Reviewing this curriculum further, one finds that other materials in the curriculum hint at themes of domestic violence, immigration, emotional distress, and racism. This type of curriculum prioritizes ideology over reading skills, hindering creativity and encouraging intellectual conformity. Unfortunately, creative play in general is down: As Jonathan Haidt explains in his new book “The Anxious Generation,” screen-based activities are up sharply since 2000 (even since 1980) while “socializing outside of the home” and playing outside both have decreased. Students are less likely to meet in person with friends and more likely to interact virtually. This may be tied to the prevalence of technology and the untethering of American society from interpersonal communication and fact-based knowledge. The “action civics” movement in K-12 schools is another example of how school officials are removing facts—names and dates, in particular—from classwork. Instead of learning about the institutions of government and how the different branches work, which is what traditional civics teaches, students are encouraged to become political activists without a firm understanding of the structure of American government. The public schools in the nation’s capital have incorporated an action civics curriculum that contends that “democracy is a verb,” yet the curriculum teaches nothing about the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, the literal foundations of our democratic republic.      What, then, can be done?   States and local education officials should consider policies that empower parents and school boards to work together to choose the types of books children read in schools.  One option: Adopt a classical or “great books” curriculum for public schools that educators may freely choose to adopt. (Most curricular decisions today are mandated by school district offices.) These books not only are foundational in civics but fundamentally shape deep thinkers and profound writers.   Parents also should have more choices for their child’s education. They should continue to advocate school choice and curricula that align with their values and meet their child’s needs. More fundamentally, parents not only should encourage children to go outside but carefully monitor their children’s screen time to foster uninhibited imagination. Families don’t need legislation for this: Haidt, for one, suggests that parents and school communities agree not to allow children to have their own smartphones until a certain age or grade, such as freshman year in high school. It is a sad day when children have lost the capacity to imagine. Policymakers, families, and educators should rebuild and reimagine school curricula to inspire children with a love for the impractical and the desire to create. The post Back to School, and Time to Foster Creativity appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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