In the middle of a pandemic, with students still stuck at home, the SFSD decided their #1 priority was stripping the names of dead Presidents from 44 schools in their district, including Washington and Lincoln, despite the fact Lincoln won freedom for enslaved African Americans and Washington was this country’s first President. The fact that Washington owned slaves is now far more important than the fact he was our Founding Father. And the fact Lincoln mistreated native Americans in his efforts to settle the American frontier, is far more important and disqualifying, than anything else he did in his life, like freeing slaves.
So if that logic is valid, should the State of Washington change its name? What about our Nation’s Capitol, Washington DC? Where do we draw the line when it comes to redacting the names of dead Presidents from our schools, State and Capitol?
Now that the Washington Football Team redacted “Redskins” from its name, perhaps they didn’t redact enough and should just go by the name, “Football Team”?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/27/san-francisco-schools-george-washington-abraham-lincoln-dianne-feinstein

All schools, cities, states, etc. should change their names to some set of words that depict the effort of 'striving to be without sin'.

And the mormon church needs to disavow all the old White prophets. BYU needs to keep the initials, but change the corporate name to Bring Yogurt University or something equally pretentious.

And I'd like something in the church name that acknowledges that they once attempted to outlaw marital oral sex.

The Church of Jesus Christ which once banned birthday blowjobs by Latter-day Saints with Stains. ...Pithy...

We both know that you petitioned the church to turn "Brigham Young University" into "Bad Yoyo Users" but they refused, unwilling to name an educational institution after a retired lounge actor.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2021 03:24PM by Lot's Wife.

I vote for Baby Yoda University. Change the motto to “The force is strong with this one”.

Something should be done about naming their sports teams after middle aged women who like to date young guys, though. But since BY was a male cougar, maybe not.

This is just San Francisco being San Francisco.

31 states have a [George] Washington County (#1).
26 states have a [Thomas] Jefferson County (#2).
24 states have a[n Andrew] Jackson County (#4). [a genuine POS]
18 states have a[n Abraham] Lincoln County.*


*The other 6 "Lincoln Counties" aren't named after Abraham. Did not know that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_common_U.S._county_names

They're not throwing sticks and stones and their renames don't hurt me, so meh... whatever makes them feel good about themselves...

+1

I disagree with the substance of the decision, especially with regard to Lincoln, but it is their business and not mine. I furthermore think Lincoln would not care. He helped people, and hoped to help them more) not for fame or history but for moral reasons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2021 04:21PM by Lot's Wife.

Very well said!

Lincoln was not perfect (who is?), but it’s hard to imagine a UNITED States without him. Honestly, do people really think we could have held the country together without him? It’s hard to imagine a seceded South would move towards equality without pressure from the rest of the country. What would we have had then? Two countries with one in a perpetual slave state?

Come on folks, let’s really weigh the merits of these figures carefully.

Yes!

In a sense the Civil War was the true revolution. The 1776 event represented the replacement of a British-American government with an American government that shared the same values and institutions. And the most important, the most dangerous, institution of slavery underwent no change at all. Europe had already turned against the inhuman institution, but the American Founders punted.

And I mean the word "punt" literally. Most of them wanted to get rid of slavery, which is why the South insisted on writing slavery into the constitution, but left that for later Americans to fix. Lincoln did that and thereby not only eliminated enslavement but also created a unified economy with a central government in position to prevent secession. That change was far more substantial than what occurred nearly a century earlier. We also know that Lincoln intended to do much more, including the preclusion of what became Jim Crow and the abolition of polygamy.

It really is, as you say, a question of priorities. You know what would cement Lincoln's place in history even more than it already is? To have people take down his statues and then, a generation or so later, replace them in recognition of the extent to which he, despite his flaws and limitations, created the United States of America.

Isn't that the real test of greatness? Not whether your friends use their power to erect edifices to your name but to have your malcontents, your critics, those who found you wanting, think deeply on your character and achievements and THEN ensconce you in the national history.

Exactly this. This latest round of statue toppling and name cancelling is very minor part of the debate that's been ongoing since even before 1776. We can benefit from a critical look at our heroes. We can benefit by making room for new ones.

Some people would have us believe that such criticism, this removal of the shine from our heroes, "isn't necessary for your patriotism". But the facts that Jefferson owned slaves, that Lincoln was "a man of his time" when it came to race, and that Ol' Joe had a thing for Fanny are out there. How these facts should be addressed deserves debate. So again, if people of a community feel better with different names on their schools, so be it. The debate goes on...

Humberto Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Exactly this. This latest round of statue toppling
> and name cancelling is very minor part of the
> debate that's been ongoing since even before 1776.
> We can benefit from a critical look at our heroes.
> We can benefit by making room for new ones.
>
Exactly!
Right now it’s clear to you and me that we can’t depend upon a ‘Savior’ to save us from what is coming. If we are going to be saved, we have to save ourselves or at least our our loved ones.
I see people waking up as a result of 1/6, which gives me hope. But someday the Boys in Blue will get as real with the Boys with Toys as they are with Civil Rights Protesters.
I get a sense that day is soon.
And it will get rough.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2021 12:47PM by schrodingerscat.

I think that in the long run, our old heroes will still be heroes.

They had flaws, as would be expected, but this is where the new heroes, like MLK Jr. and John Lewis, come in to support an ever improving legacy.

Humberto Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They're not throwing sticks and stones and their
> renames don't hurt me, so meh... whatever makes
> them feel good about themselves...

I’m on board with removing the names of dead racists from schools, and SFSD can do what they want, but Washington? Lincoln? Really? As if founding our country and freeing the slaves doesn’t count for jack squat, compared to their wrongs?
Where do you draw the line?
If we start renaming things using their logic, do we rename states, like Washington? Do we rename our Nation’s Capitol?
Dynamite all the faces on Mt. Rushmore?
Are we now like the Taliban, blowing up graven images of all of our founding fathers and redacting their names from the historical record?

> Are we now like the Taliban, blowing up graven
> images of all of our founding fathers and
> redacting their names from the historical record?

That's some Bill Maher logic right there.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Are we now like the Taliban, blowing up graven
> > images of all of our founding fathers and
> > redacting their names from the historical
> record?
>
> That's some Bill Maher logic right there.

Haha, I'm obviously taking the logic to its extreme, which I guess I might share in common with Bill Maher, who makes a living on pointing out bullshit. Sometimes he goes too far and gets his ass fired from a major network, so he goes off and becomes one of the most influential political critics in the US, which probably qualifies him for most influential critic of Trump. Has been for 25 years. There's a long history there, invoving multi million dollar lawsuits over Trump's Mom fucking an orangutan in the 40's. haha

schrodingerscat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
THis is 3 years before Trump ran for president. haha

https://www.reuters.com/article/entertainment-us-usa-trump-lawsuit/trump-withdraws-orangutan-lawsuit-against-comic-bill-maher-idUSBRE9310PL20130402

^What I love about America,
not even in the worst possible scenario,
Does somebody like Bill Maher get tossed in Gitmo,
He's kind of like Alexei Navalny in Russia right now
only trump didn't try to kill him by poisoning his underwear.
He just tried to kill us by poisoning the rest of us through dereliction of duty.
The one thing he got right was when he said, "I could go out on 5th Ave and shoot somebody and not lose a follower. It's amazing."
He was only off by 450,000 innocent people and counting, but same principle.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2021 06:55PM by schrodingerscat.

Oh Zeus, please make it stop. Maher is an entertainer who goes just far enough to shock his rather naive audience and no farther. Over time, moreover, he changes his positions (without acknowledgement) in order to renew his appeal.


------------------
> Haha, I'm obviously taking the logic to its
> extreme, which I guess I might share in common
> with Bill Maher, who makes a living on pointing
> out bullshit.

No, he makes his living by giving his middle class, aspiringly hip punters 105% of their political views in the knowledge that that last 5% will make them feel bold, edgy.


---------------
> he goes off
> and becomes one of the most influential political
> critics in the US,

He has virtually no influence over US politics. Serious people don't watch his shows since they are so predictably WH+5%. No serious pollster, analyst, or politician pays him attention.


--------------
> which probably qualifies him
> for most influential critic of Trump. Has been for
> 25 years.

No, Kori, that is wrong. Maher has used mild, incoherent criticism of Trump to keep his credulous audience feeling smart and superior.


---------------
> There's a long history there, invoving
> multi million dollar lawsuits over Trump's Mom
> fucking an orangutan in the 40's. haha

Yes, that's about right. It's a good example of Maher's political acumen and seriousness.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Oh Zeus, please make it stop. Maher is an
> entertainer who goes just far enough to shock his
> rather naive audience and no farther. Over time,
> moreover, he changes his positions (without
> acknowledgement) in order to renew his appeal.
>
I know. I don't love the guy, I just think his show political show pulls no punches, usually. But this latest goes too far. I guess remains to be seen, but I don't know what to believe, when it comes to the virus, right now. I generally trust the epidemiologists, but even they have been known to be wrong, like when he told everybody not to wear masks. Now every Anti-Masker has an excuse for not wanting wear a mask. He says they were just hard to get at the time, that Dr's and Nurses needed them, but that's not what he said at the time, so now everybody uses that to discredit him and not wear masks. Anti Vaxers piss me off. It's not like you can send your kids to school w/o measles vaccines, right? So why are we sending the little spreaders back to a super spreader event every day?

> No, he makes his living by giving his middle
> class, aspiringly hip punters 105% of their
> political views in the knowledge that that last 5%
> will make them feel bold, edgy.
>
>
> ---------------
> > he goes off
> > and becomes one of the most influential
> political
> > critics in the US,
>
> He has virtually no influence over US politics.
> Serious people don't watch his shows since they
> are so predictably WH+5%. No serious pollster,
> analyst, or politician pays him attention.
>
I'm not going to sit here and argue over how popular Bill Maher is. He obviously doesn't need my help. I was actually having this whole conversation with my Sister and Wife and Nieces the other day about Bill Maher and Joe Rogan, both of whom smoke weed daily and are healthy. My niece said, "Yeah and they have asshole opinions! If you want to sound like an asshole, then sure!" haha
My wife agrees. She can't stand Bill Maher, and they're both atheist, very liberal, pro human rights, Jews. You'd think they'd see eye to eye on most things. But she thinks he talks too much. It's not so much what he says, it's how he says it.
She doesn't like him fat shaming people.
She doesn't like the way he treats women.
But she has no problem with an of what he has to say usually.
But she really jumped on him for bringing those two scientists in particular on last week, to push the whole Bannon theory that the virus was created in a lab in Wuhan, not in the market, after saying 6 mo ago that the wuhan market was like a nuclear bomb and should be outlawed.
Completely changed his mind and said nothing about what he said 6 mo prior.
Same thing with Trump.
He's been saying all along Trump wasn't leaving.
Then he left

So the message that resounds now, to me on the eve of Presidential Impeachment Take Two, is the quote by Obama to his worried daughters 4 years ago, "Nothing is the end of the world except the end of the world."

Hey, at least Trump wasn't the end of the world.
We all survived and so did our freedoms,
more or less.

We've reached the point where we either consent to living in a surveillance society or a democracy. We can't have both.

Three points.

First, your recapitulation of his statements on COVID--unabashedly and completely reversing himself on how the pandemic started--vindicates my point about his lack of principle. He changed his position to goose his audience, not because he cares about the truth.

Second, in this post you write that you are "not going to sit here and argue over how popular Bill Maher is." We have no argument. I have never challenged his popularity.

Third, you've changed your position. You earlier post called him "politically influential." In this post, however, you make no such claim; you only say that he and Rogan are popular.

Agreed. While neither are good political analysts, or influential with anyone who has graduated from mom's basement, they are indeed popular. They use juvenile political discussion to gratify their audience and make money.

We should all be so successful.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Three points.
>
> First, your recapitulation of his statements on
> COVID--unabashedly and completely reversing
> himself on how the pandemic started--vindicates my
> point about his lack of principle. He changed his
> position to goose his audience, not because he
> cares about the truth.
>
> Second, in this post you write that you are "not
> going to sit here and argue over how popular Bill
> Maher is." We have no argument. I have never
> challenged his popularity.
>
> Third, you've changed your position. You earlier
> post called him "politically influential." In
> this post, however, you make no such claim; you
> only say that he and Rogan are popular.
>
> Agreed. While neither are good political
> analysts, or influential with anyone who has
> graduated from mom's basement, they are indeed
> popular. They use juvenile political discussion
> to gratify their audience and make money.
>
> We should all be so successful.

Sam is a great writer and eloquent speaker. Bill is a political satirist, and Joe is a podcaster, the biggest one in America. They have a lot of conversations about topics you can’t really have in polite society. But they all 3 are atheists who are perfectly willing to call bullshit whenever they see, hear or smell bullshit!
Which I think is a vital part of society, otherwise there’s nothing stopping people from selling bullshit. I disagree with Bill Maher on quite a few things. But I don’t really see where I disagree with Harris. Out of all the books he has written or speeches he has given, I think there are only a few things I disagree with.
He’s harsh on Islam, but he is harsh on all religions and he is compassionate at the same time. He has empathy, which is the key to wisdom I believe.

All three are entertainers. If you like that flavor of ice cream--vanilla with some political sprinkles--then more power to you.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All three are entertainers. If you like that
> flavor of ice cream--vanilla with some political
> sprinkles--then more power to you.
Sam Harris is a Neuroscientist, philosopher, NYT Bestselling Author and podcast host. The best philosopher alive today in my opinion.
Name a living philosopher with a bigger audience than Sam Harris.

Maybe Neil deGrasse Tyson or Michio Kaku, but I think they wouldn’t call themselves anything but scientists.

> Sam Harris is a Neuroscientist, philosopher, NYT
> Bestselling Author and podcast host. The best
> philosopher alive today in my opinion.
> Name a living philosopher with a bigger audience
> than Sam Harris.

Your standards are low. Harris has a bestseller, a podcast, and a big audience. Crowd size: where have we heard that before?

Sam Harris has never worked as a scientist or a philosopher. Like Bill Maher and Seth Rogan, you have again fallen for a Youtube influencer.

You can’t name a better response to 9-11.
Nor can you name a more wise living philosopher.

You have no evidence in support of either of those propositions other than my refusal to suggest books to a man who is too indolent to read them.

There are more viable interpretations of my refusal.

I think it's important to understand history. It's less important to worship it or its caricatures.

Humberto Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think it's important to understand history. It's
> less important to worship it or its caricatures.

I agree. I mean, I don't give a shit if SF changes the names of their schools. Who cares, right? Life's too short.
And We have much bigger fish to fry, like figuring out how to beat Covid and not blow it for a weekend party because two out of town teams are bashing each other's brains in and 90% of them will end up brain damaged. Fuck it Dude! Freedom! Fuck Yeah America!!! People have had it. Especially in Florida. It's a whole other world down there.
I kinda hope they make it JEsusland USA!!! and give Texas back to Mexico or the Indians. FUck it. and the rest of the South, except Georgia. We're keeping Georgia!
And Ship MORmONs to Jesusland to settle around the YFZ Ranch. Put them on a reservation, if they love Orange Jesus so much. Kind of like Palestine. The West Bank and the GAza Heights.
We can still go there and they can come here, we're just going to have to have some rules and we'll all get through this no problem.

Your positions in this thread are inconsistent. You either care, as you did in several previous posts; or as you claim here, you don't.

But you really should make up your mind.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Your positions in this thread are inconsistent.
> You either care, as you did in several previous
> posts; or as you claim here, you don't.
>
> But you really should make up your mind.


I care about history.
I care about always being found on the right side of history.
I care about what's happening in this country right now.
Which has never happened before.
There is no historical precedence for a twice impeached former President to be prosecuted by the Senate and expelled from public service for life. I mean, except Napoleon. What else from history even comes close?
I'd say Sam Harris is right, "Trump is not Stalin. He's not Hitler.
Let's find some common ground here."
I imagine Trump will either suffer zero consequences for inciting a Coup or
What?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2021 01:19PM by schrodingerscat.

Sam Harris as a political analyst? He's not substantially better than Maher.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sam Harris as a political analyst? He's not
> substantially better than Maher.

I think he had the best response to 9-11, "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason"

https://www.amazon.com/End-Faith-Religion-Terror-Future/dp/0393327655


And he had the best response to 1-6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-pTYLhitds

IMO.
But I'd be happy to see better responses to those two events.

> But I'd be happy to see better responses to those
> two events.

No one is hiding the ball.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > But I'd be happy to see better responses to
> those
> > two events.
>
> No one is hiding the ball.

What was a better response to 9-11 than “End of Faith”?

I don't even want to say.
BUt it ain't pretty in downtown where I live right now.
I've been in a lot of 3rd World countries with a lot less poverty than what I see here in my state capitol. The same is true in Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, keep going on down the West Coast. The homeless population was rising rapidly before the pandemic hit, due in large part, in my neck of the woods, to the high cost of rent, due to companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Boeing and a hell of a lot of High Tech companies moving here and driving the rents through the roof. As a result, folks who never served in the military cant afford to pay medical bills and they're ruined pretty quick and out on the street with a sleeping bag and a tent and nowhere to turn. Here it's just, tough shit Grandpa, you shoulda contributed to your 401K dumbass! It's sad. People fighting each other in he streets over a warm place to stay and lack of medical care. It's kinda starting to look like a zombie apocalypses with zombies walking around everywhere, only they're looking at cell phones.

I don't want one of the big players in high tech in my neck of the woods. I like to keep housing at least somewhat affordable.

Schrodingerscat should stop using that username unless he agrees to be dead in an appropriate percentage of his posts. Integrity demands it and blah blah. :)

Your observation is correct.

And it is incorrect.

Talley ho!

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Schrodingerscat should stop using that username
> unless he agrees to be dead in an appropriate
> percentage of his posts. Integrity demands it and
> blah blah. :)

I am what you think I am.
either
I do not exist
Or
I do
The choice is up to you

Well I think the trouble begins with the schools, with the young people. They are spending too much time learning math and science and not enough time learning to interpret history. They are taught facts and memorization of details and names, but they are not being taught how to draw correct conclusions. What all our history actually means, why Washington did not free his slaves, what Lincoln really thought about Africans, and why.

See the real problem is that we have a bunch of yahoos who think they are the anointed ones, They have their special vision that is of so much importance that they are willing to do anything to progress the world into their desired direction. They have the self appointed divine destiny to recreate society the way they think it ought to be. They even think they can control the weather. It's the inteligensia.

What we need is for the schools to begin teaching why America is exceptional once again. What the opposing parties (who were in the wrong), the Tories, the Laudians, those for the status quo, believed as opposed to the radicals,... the patriots, the libertarians.

This is the sort of self-righteous celebration of stupidity that leads so frequently to human tragedy. Witness the moronic and uneducated thuggery that occurred in Washington a month ago.

magaRomney thinks that people should learn logic (but not the epitome of logic, math); and history (but only his approved interpretation of it); and that it is wrong to reform society (unless it is his sort of "reformation"). He applauds the negative elements of American exceptionalism--racism, inequality, and anti-science obscurantism--and denigrates the values embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Indeed, he implies that Lincoln thought ill of African Americans and yet we know that the president snubbed his cabinet and the ambassadors of Europe--far greater men than our resident opponent of Algebra II--to embrace "my friend Douglas" at his inauguration.

Face it, maga, you are fundamentally and irredeemably ignorant, using words and concepts that you do not understand. You reject the Tories, who were and are conservatives; and the Laudians, who opposed predestination and believed in free will and individual responsibility; and applaud what you term "libertarians" (an Orwellian misnomer!) and "patriots" (who by the Founders' standards would now be, and as they then were, imprisoned or executed as traitors).

You may tell yourself you are a patriot, but that is not true in any sense that the Founders would have recognized. Nor will the rest of us stand by as you attempt to remake America in your own cretinous image, which is in any case decidedly and spectacularly "last month." Thankfully, however, you don't have to live forever with the cognitive dissonance of trying to function in a constitutional democracy. You may at any moment go and live in a place where your views fit in--like Orban's Hungary or Erdogan's Turkey.

One stone, two birds. Do what is economical.

"They are taught facts and memorization of details and names, but they are not being taught how to draw correct conclusions."

Actually, experience has shown that the dilution of American education has led to the children neither learning history nor learning to draw conclusions from it.

The weak sauce education that your side has propounded which was intended to be good at producing quiet little industrial drones with their heads full of gee-whiz STEM ideas has also produced a generation who don't know sh*t from shinola when it comes to your lily-white version of history. Which ultimately means that they didn't get the indoctrination you wanted nor the ability to question it.

Instead they've largely been forced to look elsewhere for their values and mores and teach themselves. And guess what, yeah, the internet is full of it, but most of them want to rebuild the world in ways that don't involve kowtowing to varnished histories of heroism unexamined.

They will be better than we were, because they aren't shackled to your side's lies and the rah-rah drumbeat of a Potemkin history.

Tyson



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2021 02:48PM by Tyson Dunn.

macaRomney Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They even think they can control the weather.
> It's the inteligensia.
===============================

Actually, it's the illuminati.
And they DO control the weather.

These same turkeys would be in the crowd with loud condemnation of AlQuida destroying the "graven images" that were the centuries old Cliff Carvings in Afghanistan.

They are doing the same thing now using even dumber excuses.

I've always been opposed to things being named after people.

How about after parts of the body?

Due to sounding like people names, schools would not be named "Johnson," "John Thomas," or the short form of "Richard."

I strongly prefer geographic names for places.

What, you thought they'd stop with Confederate generals?
What, you think they'll stop with Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson?

What, you thought they'd stop with the Stamp Act protests?

What, you think they'll stop with some tea in the harbor?

Do you think they should be stopped?

Shouldn't efforts be made to adjust to an ever changing world? Or is it better to rest on the grand accomplishments made 250 years ago?

I think our American culture is really starting to wrestle with the question of how the majority treats the minority. IMO it's going to be a long, pitched battle. San Francisco is displaying some of the extremism on the left, but all things considered, it's rather mild by comparison to what is going on with the extreme right.

The U.S. will be majority-minority somewhere between 2040 and 2050, most likely around 2044. That's why this is happening. The majority is gradually losing control, and some are not taking that kindly.

I really hope they change the name of the state of Washington to something that reflects the original people of the area.

Apparently it was originally going to be called Columbia, but it was thought it would be confused with the Dist of Columbia.... guess Washington and Washington DC have never been confused.

how would this guy feel ~


meet george washington carver ~



not peanuts to him ~

Far, far left and the far, far right absolutely need each other.
They keep each other going strong, because they are structurally exactly the same people.

;-D

P.S. - don't forget the two aircraft carriers while busy de-naming things

I've heard this theory before, that things don't lie on a one dimensional
line, but on a 2 dimensional circle, with the extremes meeting somewhere along it.

It's stupid. There isn't one dimension or two. There are many, many more than that.

Politics

SL Cabbie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/san-francisco-li
> ncoln-blm/

Better write Bill Maher and HBO and have them retract the opening of their show two nights ago.
That SNOPES article doesn't even apply, it's from last year.

https://trendingpolitics.com/bill-maher-unleashes-on-radical-left-for-avoiding-real-progress-and-being-obsessed-with-renaming-things/

And tell them the NYT is full of shit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/us/san-francisco-schools-lincoln-feinstein.html

Better tell the Guardian to retract the story.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/27/san-francisco-schools-george-washington-abraham-lincoln-dianne-feinstein

No, this is a real thing:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/education/article/Washington-and-Lincoln-are-out-S-F-school-board-15900963.php

It's behind a paywall, but here are a few excerpts:

"The names of presidents, conquistadors, authors and even a current U.S. senator will be removed from 44 San Francisco school sites after the city's school board Tuesday deemed the iconic figures unworthy of the honor.

"The 6-1 vote followed months of controversy, with officials, parents, students and alumni at odds over whether Abraham Lincoln and George Washington high schools, Dianne Feinstein Elementary and dozens of others needed new names with no connection to slavery, oppression, racism or similar criteria.

"Critics called the process slapdash, with little to no input from historians and a lack of information on the basis for each recommendation. In one instance, the committee didn't know whether Roosevelt Middle School was named after Theodore or Franklin Delano.

"Many San Francisco parents — as well as Mayor London Breed — argued the effort was ill-timed given the pandemic and the impact on children, especially students of color, and the fact that students are not even in the schools subject to renaming. Some criticized the board Tuesday for focusing on symbolism rather than the urgent reality facing struggling students, who are approaching a year in distance learning, with many struggling academically, socially and emotionally.

"The task force said that Dianne Feinstein's name should be removed from her namesake school because, as mayor, she replaced a vandalized Confederate flag that was part of a long-standing flag display in front of City Hall. When the flag was pulled down a second time, she did not replace it. Several speakers opposed renaming the Sunset District school."