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So, obviously I’m in a special case here what w/being in #FITN NH, but we had dozens of the 2008 primary’s presidential candidates visit my high school; politics were everywhere. And then there were the Iraq war protests, the “grinding” controversy, civics req going into effect… @emeriticus/1643302899802333209Permalink On twitter.com
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One of these days I’m going to have to do a deep dive into the diary I kept in those days and extract the political portions of it to post on here…Permalink On twitter.com
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Ok, I’m giving it a readthru… I was pretty nonsensical as a kid, so I’m going to try to only extract the parts that make sense: - In 6th grade, our class currency was called “Patriot Bucks” (presumably due to being in the aftermath of 9/11, as this was 2002)Permalink On twitter.com
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- I had to make some redactions here to protect an identity. I was kind of a suck-up teacher’s pet as a kid, and as such, I got bullied for it. In retrospect, getting them suspended was probably the wrong move, as it moved this classmate along the school-to-prison pipeline…Permalink On twitter.com
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…which has led them to bad outcomes in adulthood. We should have just worked things out on our own instead of relying on the carceral system. But anyways, homophobia was a lot worse back then; “gay” was pretty much everyone’s go-to insult, and all nerds were assumed to be it…Permalink On twitter.com
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…which may possibly be why I go out of my way to perform heterosexuality occasionally (I *am* actually straight, I’m just saying that my performance of straightness occasionally can be an overreaction to getting called “gay” a lot in my teens)Permalink On twitter.com
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This was my diary on the eve of war in Iraq. My first protest I recorded going to, when I was still in 6th grade! (gap between dates is because I didn’t write every day, just when I felt like it)Permalink On twitter.com
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Oh man, thinking the war in Iraq was almost over in April of 2003, how naïve… (This was from an April 7th entry, but I’m trimming the whole portion about our new guinea pig, since the connection to politics there is only extremely tenuous)Permalink On twitter.com
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(the whole “AfterNote” thing is because I would edit previous entries when I’d read through them before writing a new one, btw)Permalink On twitter.com
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Standardized testing hits! “No Child Left Behind” had recently been passed, but I think this was our own state-level standardized testing that I was referring to, which had been around since before NCLB…Permalink On twitter.com
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2004 primary season! My parents and I were already disagreeing in presidential primaries at this point!Permalink On twitter.com
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All right, now the actual 2004 primary! The “Dean Scream” gets a mention! Even back then we agreed that it was a stupid controversy. Also, I’d forgotten how close the primaries were to the Super Bowl that year! (N.B. when I say I “voted” I’m talking about the “Kids Vote” thing)Permalink On twitter.com
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So yes, when I was in 7th grade I executed a Lego minifigure representing George W. Bush with a Lego guillotine… (names redacted to protect the innocent)On twitter.com
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Oh wait, scratch that, it wasn’t actually the March 12th entry where I executed the Lego Bush, but rather later, in the April 24th entry… (I have no clue what happened to that video tape, and even if I did, no, you may not see it)Permalink On twitter.com
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I feel like this exhibit from the Guggenheim is political in some way. Entry is from Apr. 29, ’04. I remember my parents being skeptical that we were actually allowed to take the candies, due to longstanding norms against touching museum exhibits, but I was just reading the signPermalink On twitter.com
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I feel like there’s a message here about sources of law, written vs. unwritten rules, promulgation, neurodivergence, age, and legalism, but I don’t really feel like spelling it out at the moment…Permalink On twitter.com
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A few things to note here: - “Confirmed” = Confirmation, as in the thing at church. It isn’t really as big of a deal in Methodism as it is in, say, Catholicism, but it still kind of is. - Yeah, why *do* they call it a “soup kitchen”, anyways, if there’s no soup at it?Permalink On twitter.com
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- Also, it’s worth noting that my pattern of “Vote left in the primary, then end up volunteering for the centrist who gets nominated for the general anyways” was already getting established, even when I was in 7th grade.Permalink On twitter.com
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So, this one isn’t expressly political per se, but I feel like it’s kind of a metaphor for my politics: I believe in helping people, regardless of whether that “enables” them, and that makes others angry. You see this with laws against handing out water at the polls or the borderPermalink On twitter.com
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So what if it only encourages them to forget their own paper and rely on me for mine? I’m fine giving it out, and they’re happy to receive it. People in positions of authority should not be allowed to intervene to stop people from helping one another.Permalink On twitter.com
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Oh yeah, remember when manual data entry used to be a task for volunteers to do, @NHDems? Nowadays everyone pretty much enters their data as they’re canvassing into MiniVAN, & volunteer signup forms are usually online, so manual data entry isn’t really as much of a thing anymorePermalink On twitter.com
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I kinda wonder what they’d have a random 7th grader who wandered into the office do nowadays, if they were looking to help…Permalink On twitter.com
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The Merrimack 4th of July parade! A long-standing tradition!Permalink On twitter.com
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Visibility on the bridge over I-93! Is this still a thing people do? I haven’t really seen much of it there lately these days… (entry is from the August 3rd, 2004 entry, btw)Permalink On twitter.com
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Oh right, I should try finding these letters to the editor that I wrote back in those days, too; I forget where I would have saved them, though… @ConMonitorNews how good are your archives? cc @ConcordNHLibPermalink On twitter.com
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Extremely disappointed with my 8th-grade self that I didn’t go and write those 5 pages; they would have been interesting to look back on… (Also, by “listen to the Red Sox” I meant, on @WEEI on the radio, since my family didn’t get whichever TV station was carrying it)Permalink On twitter.com
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Again with my “rules must be written down to be real” rule! Note that the first two redactions refer to the same teacher, while the 3rd redaction refers to a friend of mine who was being silly. BTW, about students having rights, we should pass a #StudentBillOfRights in law.Permalink On twitter.com
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(N.B. by a “Student Bill Of Rights” I don’t mean that students should just be allowed to do whatever, though, just that they should be protected from arbitrary exercises of power, and rather bound by a set of written rules that is duly promulgated)Permalink On twitter.com
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An early display of my distaste for suburban sprawl! Increase density! Down with car culture! (This was the Fort Myers / St. Petersburg area, for reference; entry is from March 5, 2005)Permalink On twitter.com
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I think I’m probably going to stop there for tonight; gotta get up early for session tomorrow, after all… (and plus I’m getting bored of the whole screenshotting, redacting, and annotating process)Permalink On twitter.com
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been meaning to return to this thread, but the next entry is going to require a lot of explanation…Permalink On twitter.com
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Back to this thread. Explanatory notes on this 1: 1. Date's wrong, it's actually from 2005 (both the entries before/after it were from '05), but I made a mistake 2. While, yes the genocide in Darfur was bad, in retrospect the whole "Save Darfur" activism around it wasn't the bestPermalink On twitter.com
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…specifically, the whole campaign didn't really have a good "ask" beyond "raising awareness" (which is pretty useless). This was something I didn't include in the entry but still remember, but my social studies teacher kinda stumped me on this when he pressed me on how exactly…Permalink On twitter.com
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…I intended for Darfur to be "saved" and I didn't really have an answer beyond "get the UN more involved". He had served in the military, and I think where he was going with that was concern that I was calling for military intervention there, which could have turned it into…Permalink On twitter.com
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…another Iraq, which was a war that I opposed. Which brings me to the "What are the green ones for?" part of the entry: that was in contrast to the yellow "Support Our Troops" wristbands that all the war-supporters were wearing, so I thought I was going against that trend by…Permalink On twitter.com
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…having wristbands of a different color for a different cause, but in retrospect, I wasn't actually, I was just calling for the same sort of interventionism that the yellow-wristband-wearers were supporting. Oh well, it was a learning experience, at least. Anyways, onto the…Permalink On twitter.com
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…ANWR part of the entry. By "letter" I meant a Letter To the Editor in @ConMonitorNews; the "un" in "unprotecting" is capitalized just for emphasis, not as a reference to the United Nations or anything. I find it kinda sadly amusing that we're still fighting about drilling for…Permalink On twitter.com
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…oil in ANWR today. Also, now that I'm posting this for public consumption, I'd just like to note that the line about "government promises" was specifically about saying, "Hey, we're going to protect this area of land" and then going back on it. The Bush Administration might…Permalink On twitter.com
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…not have been trustworthy, but that doesn't mean that government promises in general aren't trustworthy. I was more just focused on attacking the Bush Administration there (for being bad for the environment) than I was in making any sort of general statements about government.Permalink On twitter.com
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Anyways! That's it for *that* entry; see, I told you it would require a lot of explanation... anyways, onto the next one...Permalink On twitter.com
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Oh man, I wish I knew what had happened to that video I had made… it would've been on VHS… I think this might've been the 1 where I made up my basement to look like a terrorist cave in Afghanistan? It was 1 of those classic NH basements with a granite foundation & dirt floor…Permalink On twitter.com
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Also, the math part is a good reminder that you don't *have* to use tax prep software like TurboTax to file your taxes! I believe (or at least hope) that @ConcordNHLib still makes paper 1040-series forms available for the public during tax season!Permalink On twitter.com
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Anyone remember who does those "I'm Voting for Kids" bumper stickers again? Are they an @NEANHVotes thing, or am I misremembering? Anyways, by "on the side of it" I mean on the crossbar, the diagonal one between front and back wheels.Permalink On twitter.com
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This one probably deserves further commentary about how my views on religion and politics have since evolved, but I don't really feel like going too into depth, so I'll just say, that while I am still Christian, and still a Democrat, I don't think I'd write the same letter today.Permalink On twitter.com
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This was all I had to say for politics stuff for my July 24, 2005 entry; the "only" is because I was comparing it to the previous year (2004), where I volunteered a lot more due to it being an election year.Permalink On twitter.com
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I feel like the sentence on the Deerfield here deserves an entire article on the relationship between our school systems, but I don't really feel like writing it myself, tbh...Permalink On twitter.com
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Oh yeah, 2005 was the year that Hurricane Katrina happened... even though there wasn't a Young Dems club at my high school at the time, I didn't let that stop me from getting involved. I never really ended up doing much with the Newspaper Club, but I have since found out that…Permalink On twitter.com
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…my teacher advisor for that club is now retired & landlording & advocating on behalf of landlords to the legislature, which has really soured my opinion of him in retrospect… if teachers were paid more, he wouldn't have had to turn to landlording, and we could still get along.Permalink On twitter.com
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More notes from Sep. 10, 2005: - My anti-work nature starts to take root! - I still have a hard time getting up in the morning - I was only a freshman in high school; wtf was up with these attempts to get me to perform child labor - R.I.P. Cinema 93 - @RedRiverMovies origin storyPermalink On twitter.com
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