We’ve been following local politics, and given our very fine commentary about it, for about 7 1/2 years now. In that time no candidate has ruffled our feathers more than Cindy Rose and the minions she finds to run along side her. Our complaints about her are very well documented in this blog, so we are not going to spend a whole lot of time going down memory lane. For there is of course some fresh new hell to cover.
Cindy and her ilk are very proud of an endorsement from the 1776 Project PAC.
Did the ghosts of George Washington and co. come back to choose school board candidates? Sorry to tell you ladies, but women aren’t allowed in politics according to them!
Well, of course we had to look into this organization! And yes, it’s a horror show. Just look at what happens when you click on their website:
WOW! Before they even let you see what they are about, they have a reporting mechanism for ratting out schools for teaching accurate history (since no K-12 schools are teaching critical race theory, we must suppose that truth in education is really what they are opposed to)!
It gets worse, because of course it does:
None of this makes any sense..nor is it true.
Well, they could have left it at that. But their one failed candidate, who is now their communications director, (stop laughing people!) put this out…FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
What these people don’t know could fill the universe!
We unfortunately have too many examples of racism in FCPS. It exists, and the people who say it doesn’t exist are either: a. willfully ignorant or b. have racist beliefs that they are unwilling to acknowledge or work on themselves. We pick b.
Today we unfortunately have yet another example of this problem in FCPS:
There’s a lot of good literature out there that discusses why white people don’t want to acknowledge or discuss issues of race. We’ll delve a little into here, with the caveat that we aren’t experts, but we are white people who are trying to be better.
When some white people hear the word racist they conjure up an image of a Ku Klux Klan member who calls POC terrible names and sometimes, or maybe often, resorts to violence. Therefore, when some white people are called racist they immediately reject that label, because of course they don’t believe they are on the same level as a member of the Klan. Unfortunately, any chance of a productive conversation is shut down; denials of whatever just happened pooh-pooh away a real problem as though a POC is just overreacting or misconstruing what was actually meant. This is where white people need to change, and it isn’t the responsibility of POC to lead us down this path. We need to examine our biases. We need to think about what we learned in school as children, the TV shows, movies, and books we were exposed to that helped shaped our world view. We need to think about the stereotypes and prejudices that were passed down to us from our parents and our grandparents and then we need to be BETTER.
We wrote a little bit about Critical Race Theory and schools, so we aren’t going to rehash all that again. But we will say this: the way history was taught to many of us as children has not served us well. Many of us don’t understand the past, won’t acknowledge the power structures in this country, and as a result, are causing real harm to adults and children in our community. Of course what happened 300, 200, 100 years ago isn’t the fault of anyone alive today. What is our fault is not acknowledging the harm that our past has brought upon others, and how our past has shaped our present.
So to Cindy and her little hate slate that wants to sit on our school board and pretend that racism isn’t a thing around here we say:
And don’t get back up until you are ready to be a god damn adult!
Oy vey. We are counting on you all to avert a crisis. Many thanks to our alert readers! We frequently have little birds who let us know things (our Facebook inbox is the best way) and today’s news was somewhat alarming.
We heard that allegedly normal people are being convinced to believe insane things are happening in our schools! It is truly a wonder to behold the things people will believe these days. Whether it is that the school system is grooming children and teaching them to be racist, JFK Jr is alive (AND also is an UberMAGA DJT fan!!!!), or that the power grid of Washington D.C. is powered by aborted fetuses, it seems like it is shockingly easy to override the bullshit meters of the general population these days.
Make it stop.
We are asking everyone to help spread the word that teaching our kids everyone can aspire to become a tradesperson, engineer, or hairdresser is a good thing; it’s literally the opposite of grooming to inform them that their parts covered by bathing suits aren’t parts other people should be fiddling with, and learning accurate history is not a guilt trip but a path to a better future! P.S.: this disgusting degenerate has been detained for sexually abusing a child who is a family member in case you needed a reason why there is actually age appropriate sex education for elementary schoolers–it’s so they know how to report when they are being abused!
The info is in the title of this piece, but please we are begging you to share it with your friends and with young voters who may not have a lot of election experience but really do care about the future of their community. All registered voters can vote in the primary for the nonpartisan races. The Board of Education race is nonpartisan. In a manner of speaking, anyway. You have your “Hate Slate Classic” and your “Second Rate Hate Slate,” all of whom are crossed out for obvious reasons. We had left “The Normies” who are not making up apocalyptic fictions about the school system in order to get elected. There are stars by the Apple Ballot endorsed candidates, who we also feel warm to, but we’ve recently crossed off a couple more candidates since we last shared this, due to finding little to no information about them available at this late date in the election cycle.
We realize 7 gajillion people are running, so hopefully this makes it easier on you. We also have an entire canon of work about Cindy Rose (to find it use the search feature on the blog), since she is constantly running for BOE with such “well-reasoned” notions as “Click, Clack, Moo” should be a banned book. What is astonishing is that other people have voluntarily hitched their wagons balloons to this star anvil.
The primary takes place on July 19th–with early voting in place from the 7th – 14th. This means voters who are not engaged with the political organizations may not be hearing about these issues, but they do have a say about which of the candidates advance to the general election. Locations and other useful tedium is in the links. Make a plan to vote! The deadline for registration ahead of the primary is June 22, 2022. Register to vote here (you aren’t allowed to do this for other people; if you know someone who needs help with online technology offer to sit with them).
*PLEASE SHARE WITH EVERY FREDERICK COUNTY VOTER YOU KNOW*
Why do we have to keep doing this??? Why?
Three losses isn’t enough. Thrice rejected isn’t enough rejection to let this woman know that we don’t want her on the school board. Now she’s added a cast of characters to what she calls her “slate.” We refuse to give anyone on this “slate” the time of day because: a.) they either didn’t do their due diligence and research what this woman is all about OR b.) they did and then decided to hitch their wagon to her horrible star anyway.
Not that star baby, keep looking!
They have a website where you can learn their names and read their bios, but we’ll give you a little breakdown. None of them except Cindy has kids in the school system. Not one of them has any background in education except, ” I used to go to school here.” Besides Cindy, only one candidate has kids, and he HOMESCHOOLED all of them! They are all very concerned that the white kids are being made to feel shame because they are learning about what actually happened in the past. All of them seem very concerned about issues that not one of them has even encountered, since they haven’t had any interaction with the school system since they were students! But hey, when has lack of experience ever stopped someone from talking out their ass!
There is something that we need to pay a little more attention to on this website because it is both hilarious and terrible. These irredeemable candidates have already made a so-called-contract with the parents and students of this county, and we haven’t heard so many bigoted dog whistles since we stopped listening to Trump speeches years ago. This part we will parse along with y’all.
Exhibit A:
Please, for the love of Athena, learn how to use quotes correctly! If you pay attention to the bios of these folks they claim they don’t have any political agenda and just want the facts! Now take notice of how they claim to want excellence for all kids regardless of a whole bunch of descriptions (we love the political affiliation throw in!) but this next bit is going to make all y’alls head spin.
Just look at all the false assumptions!False assumptions galore!
Wow! Wow! Wow! So these non-political, common sense, critical thinking (cough cough) candidates are going to make sure that none of y’alls kids are going to hate America. Please note that the criteria for assessing a student’s possible hatred toward America is UNSPECIFIED, but we will use our critical thinking skills and imagine it will be applied to anyone who thinks differently from them. Nothing controversial is ever mentioned without expressed permission from the parent (who defines what constitutes controversial?), the LGBTQ+ community does not exist, and no “extra” rights for any of you! No matter your skin tone!!!! Oh, and don’t forget that the school system is now a theocracy because God is over government! You’ll learn which God a little later (hint: it is not Bastet)…
If any one of them had any sense at all they would have realized by now that equal rights and extra rights are not the same! AND puhleeeeeze grow up and stop with the lie that white people can’t handle the truth about the past. Many of us can deal with these issues very maturely and rationally, thank you very much! Notice how some white people are the only ones uncomfortable talking about race and some will do everything they can, including banning any truth-telling about the past, to avoid the slightest bit of discomfort? What a bunch of delicate snowflakes!
There’s more:
Number 2 is a direct hit against the transgender student policy, if you didn’t know! This has been a thorn in Cindy’s side for years now.
Third refers to the never-ending feud with Alban.
But let’s back up to that comment about the cameras in the classroom. First of all, it is illegal to record anyone with sound in the State of Maryland without their consent. That would mean that these cameras (and by the way, who would be monitoring those?) would not record sound, which means that any interaction would be open to all kinds of interpretation. And you know what? A policy like this would lead to a whole lot of FCPS teachers going elsewhere! Who wants to deal with a parent like Cindy Rose trying to dissect and invent captions for every little interaction?! No teacher gets paid enough to deal with that!
Are you starting to see the fascist streak in these folks? No talk of anything they believe to be slightly controversial, or anything that will–in their apparently expert opinions on hatefulness–make you hate America! How exactly do any critical thinking skills play into this educational philosophy? If you eliminate anything that has room for differing opinions, the opportunity for critical examination of ideas falls by the wayside as well! No groups aside from white heterosexuals will be spoken of, because these nutters waved a wand and now they don’t exist! That’s all “liberal hate talk!” And they will certainly not make the white heterosexuals feel bad about the past! And, oh yeah! They’ll be recording teachers and students 24/7 to make sure everyone complies! However, since the public won’t be able to listen to what the teachers say they will just go ahead and interpret all those classroom interactions for ya! And with their optimism and positive attitudes, that should be…uh…what’s the right word? Eventful? Terrifying? Terrorizing? Taliban-esque?
Guess what? There’s more! (We are so, so sorry; we promise it’s almost over.)
So, you can expect that no mitigation or policies for this pandemic or any future pandemic will be put into effect because of Freedumb! Parents can decide for themselves if they want to infect your child! Do you hate America or something? But hey, we already knew who these people were from the beginning, right?
We do have to pay a bit more attention to the last part up there. What a fucking hill to die on! They are going to support our so-called Judeo-Christian heritage by only acknowledging the Christian part AND making everyone else say the words Easter and Christmas because, “THERE! WE SHOWED YOU!!!!!” (There’s the God they were referring to earlier in the post.)
Is this offensive or controversial? Will it be allowed to be discussed in school? So many questions.
Psst! Cindy, we have something to tell you about the word Easter. It’s the name of a Middle Eastern goddess who represented fertility. Nothing to do with Christianity whatsoever, but hey…policing people’s speech and thought makes you feel good, so keep on trucking, Sista!
Anyhoo, we need to share this link to everything we’ve been forced to write about this lady over the years, because it’s a lot and we can’t all possibly keep up. Let’s not get complacent though; these people want to bring our school system back to some rose-colored 1950s utopia that existed for very few Americans. It’s wrong, it’s harmful, and it’s not going to happen. Would a Rose by any other name stink this much?
We’ll leave you with something she posted years ago, which really sums her up nicely:
Friday is supposed to be that day when you can breathe a sigh of relief that the work week is almost done. But then we open the Frederick News Post to find an LTE from Cindy that is such a hot mess. And now we are going to have to spend our precious time getting the word out, again, about what a terrible BOE candidate she is! Thanks a lot Cindy!
Let’s dive right in shall we? She’s upset over the planned walk-outs organized by the Parkland students, who, for some reason, want to prevent any further gun violence in American schools. Since she can’t get an answer from FCPS (more on that in a minute), she mines the internet to misconstrue one:
“A Feb. 28 post on the school board president’s Facebook page by a retired FCPS teacher and current elected member of the Frederick County Democratic Central Committee (FCDCC) gives insight into FCPS’ stance.
The FCDCC member quotes a Slate.com article, and writes “I cannot love this article enough.” The article credits the organization of the Parkland walkout to the students. Both fail to mention that Oprah, George Clooney, and many others each donated $500,000 to help organizers who also organized the “pink hat” protests: Everytown for Gun Safety, Move On and Planned Parenthood, to name a few. It’s a gun protest victimizing victims of a tragedy. But I digress.”
First of all, is looking through the comments section of Brad Young’s Facebook page the best place to find FCPS policy? It is a good place, however, for her to fuel her vendettas against those she deems an enemy. We know this member of the FCDCC, and she is more a friend to education than Cindy will ever be, however, she does not set policy for FCPS!
Yesterday, your Lady Yokels came across this in our inbox:
There is one advocacy strategy we have asked students not to use–walking out of school. FCPS does not condone student walkouts due to safety concerns that could result from such action. The most significant factor in our request that students not walk out is safety not only of the students protesting but of students in the building as well. Participating in a walkout makes students vulnerable to the very safety concerns that they are advocating we need to address. The students outside are vulnerable to anyone in the community who may seek to harm or cause conflict with the students. Students leaving the building through numerous doors endangers the students in the building as opening the doors allows access for outsiders to enter without checking in at the front office.
Guess that Oprah and Clooney money didn’t find its way to the right people! Maybe she should contact Scott Baio to see if he’s got any cash to pass out!
Let’s delve into some of the hypocrisy present in her writing. Cindy has long been an advocate of those “good old days” of education. You know when schools just stuck to the learning, not the brainwashing. Shall we take a looky at that Slate.com article she referred to above? Yes, we shall:
Despite the gradual erosion of the arts and physical education in America’s public schools, the students of Stoneman Douglas have been the beneficiaries of the kind of 1950s-style public education that has all but vanished in America and that is being dismantled with great deliberation as funding for things like the arts, civics, and enrichment are zeroed out. In no small part because the school is more affluent than its counterparts across the country (fewer than 23 percent of its students received free or reduced-price lunches in 2015–16, compared to about 64 percent across Broward County Public Schools) these kids have managed to score the kind of extracurricular education we’ve been eviscerating for decades in the United States. These kids aren’t prodigiously gifted. They’ve just had the gift of the kind of education we no longer value.
AND:
Part of the reason the Stoneman Douglas students have become stars in recent weeks is in no small part due to the fact that they are in a school system that boasts, for example, of a “system-wide debate program that teaches extemporaneous speaking from an early age.” Every middle and high school in the district has a forensics and public-speaking program. Coincidentally, some of the students at Stoneman Douglas had been preparing for debates on the issue of gun control this year, which explains in part why they could speak to the issues from day one.
There’s also this super interesting article about the AP Government teacher at Stoneman Douglas who was quoted as saying:
These students are clear-eyed, media-ready, and sophisticated, often rejecting the premise of interview questions or entirely reframing them. Foster says it’s not surprising to him which kids are getting repeated interview requests and continue to speak publicly. He’s seen these same students shine in his classroom debating controversial issues like gun control, abortion, and Colin Kaepernick. Foster says he stirs the discussion to both sides. When students don’t bring up counter-arguments, he brings them up himself.
Let’s contrast all of that with this discussion that we were unfortunately a witness to on Facebook (since that is apparently the mode in which we find out how people and organizations feel about policy):
NO SIDES? WOW! Let’s go to another section of her LTE to find out more about that no sides she’s in support of:
You doubt this? When did you last see teachers unions or a student group “walk out” in defense of any Republican cause? Do Republican causes lack substance? More likely, conservative causes don’t fit the liberal political agendas in the classroom.
That’s her, “No-Sides” Cindy Rose! It is our conclusion, from not only today’s tome, but ALL of her writings, that she sincerely believes that anyone who does not feel the same way she does about certain issues must have been brainwashed by those liberal progressive teachers. There’s no other way that students have come to the conclusion that we have a gun problem in this country other than they have been brainwashed, is there? Oh, will someone please think of the children?
She is not interested in having a school system that creates free thinkers and good debaters. She’s only interested in having a school system that espouses her belief system. Take a look at her PIA requests if you are in doubt of that. We must also point out that someone who loves to lament that the Constitution isn’t being taught in school is surprisingly (?) against students learning how to exercise their First Amendment Rights!
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Cindy, along with the rest of her slate, doesn’t want our children to learn about the issues. We are super curious how you are supposed to teach a subject like World War II without talking about “sides.” How anti-intellectual and anti-American can you get, we ask you?! We are still waiting for her, and her slate, to tell us what qualifications and special skills they possess that give them the authority to tell us what our kids should be learning in school! NOTE: COMMON SENSE IS NOT A MEASURABLE SKILL! Stay vigilant friends! We cannot make the third time the charm for her!
*And lest you think that FCPS isn’t encouraging our students to make their voices heard, here’s another section of the letter we quoted above:
… staff are meeting with student leaders to discuss the variety of ways we can work together to help students express their concerns. As a united school and through student and staff collaboration, we have explored options that include the following: Creating a video to share student advocacy via school announcements, our website and our multiple means of social media; Creating short video clips to share on Twitter to help individual students share their perspectives; Arranging in-school activities during Connect so students can follow the national trend of 17 minutes of advocacy to honor the 17 victims of the recent tragedy in Florida; Printing and distributing contact information for government officials that students may contact with concerns about legislation and policies; Providing forums for students to gather signatures on petitions to government officials; and Ensuring delivery of student-generated concerns to community leaders and elected officials. These potential activities are constantly evolving as we deepen our conversations with students about effective and safe advocacy.
This may or may not be an actual representation of your Yokels.
Y’all. We are a bit overwhelmed with the number of meetings and the OMGeeee number of candidates in this 2018 local election, so things are going to get quick and dirty here. We will do our best to keep on top of as much as humanly possible while still attending to our regular responsibilities such as work and parenting and whatnot. We do step out of our basements into the Vitamin D and seasonal allergens from time to time, actually. If you’re in need of a refresher on the tradition of anonymous writing in America, we have a whole think piece on that. It seems like some BOE candidates aren’t any better versed in history than they are in language arts…isn’t everyone shocked?
The agenda for Tuesday’s County Council meeting is here, and Billy Shreve may even attend, so just grab whatever you have handy and have at it. That said, guard you precious liver, because there is also a joint meeting of the Council and the Board of Education on Wednesday. Same “rules” apply. What have we done to deserve this?
frederick local yokel 