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[Il Palazzo]

Goddamnit, Frumple broke politics!

[Neonivek]

I'd probably prefer Frumple as the president right now.

Is there some way we can vote someone as the president as the thread?

[Lord Shonus]

The chief "problem" with the Internet is that it is so new. Putting it into a political context, only the youngest of eligible voters grew up in a connected society - anybody over 25 or so came to the modern Internet as an adult.

Growing up without that torrent of information means that a great many people didn't develop the necessary skills to evaluate that flow. In the 90s you would have maybe six news stations and a newspaper to keep you up to date, and you only had to figure out their slants once. Now, most people are flooded with dozens of new sources every day, and the older generation is not prepared to filter that.

I'm not even talking about really old people. I am referring to people around my own age, in their late 20s and early 30s. For older peoe the problem is even worse.

[Neonivek]

Saw someone bring up an interesting idea.

That the reason why White Nationalists and White Supremists are growing (Supposedly) might have to do with the sheer amount of hypocritical hate projected towards White people or rather "White Guilt".

It might be a contributing factor, but I doubt it is the main cause... But it an interesting idea that the outright racism towards White People might actually be having an affect that no amount of "Privilege" deflects.

Growing up without that torrent of information means that a great many people didn't develop the necessary skills to evaluate that flow. In the 90s you would have maybe six news stations and a newspaper to keep you up to date, and you only had to figure out their slants once. Now, most people are flooded with dozens of new sources every day, and the older generation is not prepared to filter that.

What I found is that I think acceptance grew faster as people were exposed to new ideas and people on the internet. It allowed people to live outside their little corner of the world to an extent.

It isn't as utopian as I am making it sound, but it was a pleasant effect.

Growing up without that torrent of information means that a great many people didn't develop the necessary skills to evaluate that flow

Heck even legally our laws lag behind the internet. A LOT of laws that interact with the internet don't do so well... Piracy Laws and Copyright laws being two I can think of specifically where they do not address the speed or volume this takes place in.

A woman pirated a bunch of songs onto her iPod and owes astronomical amounts of cash.

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The Privilege Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOMpxsiUg2Q

You might enjoy this. It is pretty funny and relevant to this thread.

[Dunamisdeos]

They want to rename a school in VA that is named for a confederate war hero.
 
I don't have a problem with this. The naming of a school is usually given to support the actions and ideals of a person and/or their way of thinking. It isn't used as a teaching tool or a reminder of history like a monument can be. It's intent is instead to (for lack of a better description) set a public role model. Definitely should be someone more appropriate.
 
The problem is that schools in the area are notoriously underfunded, and the article states that the cost of changing everything could reach $750,000.

[smjjames]

They want to rename a school in VA that is named for a confederate war hero.
 
I don't have a problem with this. The naming of a school is usually given to support the actions and ideals of a person and/or their way of thinking. It isn't used as a teaching tool or a reminder of history like a monument can be. It's intent is instead to (for lack of a better description) set a public role model. Definitely should be someone more appropriate.
 
The problem is that schools in the area are notoriously underfunded, and the article states that the cost of changing everything could reach $750,000.

Maybe just remove the stonewall part? Even then, people would still know who it's named after. It's a public school, right? So, maybe the government could give a grant to give the money for that, then again, it u-turns right back into the funding problem.

Alternatively, the school could crowdfund or fundraise it, somehow.

[MrRoboto75]

I went to that school, heh.

Most of us locals just call it "Stonewall", really.

[smjjames]

I looked at the article again and noticed that the guy who wants to change the name of the school is running for Congress next year and the guy opposing him (or at least gave a statement) is running for Republican nomination for the 2018 Senate election in Virginia.

It's entirely possible that the guy is trying to score political points (and is opening himself to such accusations), but I'd rather there be a serious discussion on it rather than scoring political points. Not saying that he doesn't have a point, just that a discussion would be easier without the appearance of scoring political points. Then again, politicians gonna be politicians.

[MrRoboto75]

I dunno, northern VA in general isn't very southern, not any dixie pride or whatever here at all.  Its generally urban and a lot of people here are here because they work for the federal or are contracted by the federal.  All commutes flow toward DC.  Its really only because two CW battles were held here, and honestly only history buffs and reenactors particularly care about it.  Foreigners sure as hell don't.

It isn't until you get to Richmond or maybe Fredricksburg the state becomes more southern, and a lot more rural.  Fields of corn, tobacco, and soybeans, and you might actually find a Dixie flag.

[smjjames]

Oh pfft, Corey Stewart, the Republican mentioned in the earlier article, is mentioned in this article that he had nearly won the GOP Governor nomination in Virginia on the strength of his reverence for confederate nostalgia.

I swear I wasn't trying to look for more information on the guy, I just decided to check out the latest article on that site and he just happens to be mentioned there.

[scriver]

Heh. I thought "Stonewall" Jackson was the name of a US president. President "Stonewall" Jackson.

I wonder what's with the high cost estimate though. Seems a little high?

[Frumple]

Eh, depends on the size of the school and exactly what would be involved. If they're having to do construction to get rid of/change bits, that can be a nice extra chunk of change. More stuff getting things square administratively, both in the school's immediate area and places outside... there's probably more than one college grad running around that can tell you exactly how fun things get when their high school or college changes names and they try to get/transfer into another joint that didn't get the message.

That said, yeah, it does still seem pretty high if it's a school in an already underfunded area. Would half guess they're planning on funding parts of it with grants or summat, which could very, very easily cause the total amount spent to hike up pretty hard. It's pretty common you don't really get anything beneficial if you only use part of a grant's funding... sometimes there's even penalties for it. So a school/program wanting/having to fund something they want done that way can result in what looks a lot like wasteful spending.

... which it kinda' is, but it's basically not the school's fault, and not doing could end up even more wasteful (for the school or whatev', anyway, if not whoever's providing the money).

Though. Now that I actually check. Signage, uniform changes, revamping facilities*, yeah, that looks like it might not be terribly out of line. There's also the fact that the article used the good ol' weaselshite "up to", which says probably worse than nothing about how much the school actually intends to spend and lets the article writer throw out a big number to piss people off draw attention to the reporting.

* Which sounds a lot less like, say, repainting the walls to change the name, and more like using the name change as an excuse to upgrade. It's well worth noting that kind of thing is not uncommon for schools, particularly underfunded ones. Sometimes it's the only way you can get the jackasses holding the purse strings to fork over money for stuff like vital repairs.

[Trekkin]

* Which sounds a lot less like, say, repainting the walls to change the name, and more like using the name change as an excuse to upgrade. It's well worth noting that kind of thing is not uncommon for schools, particularly underfunded ones. Sometimes it's the only way you can get the jackasses holding the purse strings to fork over money for stuff like vital repairs.

And, particularly for older schools, it can also be the case that they aren't allowed to modify anything without upgrading it, because a lot of laws are written to cover "all new construction" or similar.

[Frumple]

There is that, aye. Forgot about it, most of the ones in this area aren't really old enough (and/or no one cares enough) to worry too much about that.

[sluissa]

Heh. I thought "Stonewall" Jackson was the name of a US president. President "Stonewall" Jackson.

I wonder what's with the high cost estimate though. Seems a little high?

Having worked with /a/ school system for a while, I can tell you the method, ours at least, used to procure materials and work was not at all efficient or easy to manage. Some of that is self inflicted, but the levels of bureaucracy are hard to navigate and even harder to change... and this goes all the way from the county level straight up to the federal level.

Without going into too many details, school systems often have contracts set up that require them to use a particular supplier of work or materials for a given length of time. These contracts often have good deals set up as to the maintenance of stuff already in place, not unprofitable in bulk, but definitely better than an individual would get for an individual job, but they also know that when something outside of the scope of the negotiated prices happens, they can bump it up a bit and squeeze more money out because the contract requires that they be used for this sort of work.

On the other hand, I do feel like they were a bit quick (on school bureaucracy scale) in coming up with that dollar amount. Unless they'd already recently done something similar in relabeling another school. (Or possibly they were basing it off of "signage pricing" from another recently built new school.) They might have not even really looked too deeply into the ACTUAL costs and just thrown out a reasonably large number that would make it too much of a burden to actually do it.

Either way, I wouldn't say 750k is outside of the realm of possibility. Schools put their name and logo on a LOT of stuff. You're talking about the signage out front, to business cards, letterhead, t-shirts, uniforms, logos, books they have printed, stamps to label books they haven't printed as theirs, wall art, trophies, indescribable amounts of forms and paperwork that'd have to be remade and reprinted.

It's simply a LOT of stuff to consider in a rebranding of a school. It's not a simple, "Oh, we'll just change the sign out front and be done with it."

EDIT: Ninja'd a bit, but oh well.